The Dream
by JoetheGrim
Summary: The battle at the Valley of the End ended differently, Sasuke was brought back, and Naruto was fatally injured! suggestive themes, good Kyuubi, NaruHina, possible harem, superstrong Naruto... DISCONTINUED, UP FOR ADOPTION.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

Naruto slowly opened his eyes and from his position on the foot of the first Hokage saw his best friend on the other side. Sasuke was unconcious, lying on the other side of the Valley of the end, in front of the statue of Uchiha Madara. Naruto slowly tried moving his arms and legs, but he soon regretted it, wincing from pain at every move he did. His sight was blurry and out of focus, his wound from the Chidori wasn`t bleeding much but it was still there. He tried getting up again only to feel more pain, he slumped back and began thinking what should he do next.

After a few minutes of thinking, he saw no other choice than to swim across, and somehow climb the walls of the Valley, and then hope to run into someone friendly.

He gathered all his strength and decided to get up. He managed to get himself into a sitting position, but the bain was almost unbearable. He the heard a vaguely familliar voice,

"Stop moving" the voice said in a somewhat annoyed tone.

"W-who...who`s there?" Naruto asked wincing in pain when he tried to turn around to locate the source of the voice.

"I must be the unluckiest Demon in existence, to have such a dumb human for a vessel." said the Kyuubi.

Naruto`s eyes widened at the realisation and he immediatley started thinking

`Oh no, he somehow got free, I`m in no condition to fight him... but i have to, at least to buy some time before he goes back to Konoha...´ his thoughts were interrupted when he heard the great demon chuckling.

"Your thoughts are both brave and stupid, but you have just confirmed my previous remark, I am still within you, only now we have a better... connection so to speak, so we can now mentally communicate at any time. Now rest and let me heal your broken body while you sleep, the Uchiha isn`t going anywhere."

After a few moments of thinking about it, Naruto mentally shook his head and thought,

`No, i made a promise that i would make sure Sasuke reaches Konoha alive, and that`s exactly what im going to do´

Ignoring all the warnings and threats he heard in his head, he slowly, with a lot of pain got to the edge, pushed himself off the statue, and rolled to the water. After a few deep breaths, he got up to his knees, and tried to at least stay floating in one place with a small amount of chakra he had left. He managed to painfully crawl over to the other side, coughing up blood along the way, completely ignoring the demon lord in his head.

Sasuke was lying motionless on his back,slowly regaining conciusness. Slowly opening his eyes and trying to focus on what is happening, he remembered all about the battle he just barely survived. He could barely move out of exhaustion, even though the pain wasn`t that bad. Hearing someone coming towards him, he slowly managed to take a kunai from his holster on his right leg.

"You idiot," Naruto started, seeing that Sasuke is still alive," now I`ll have to drag you all the way back to Konoha."

Sasuke was furious on the inside, he was just beaten by the dead last of the academy, his cursed seal was constantly repeating one single sentence:

`Orochimaru can give you power, power to kill all those who think they are better than you..´

Naruto got close to Sasuke`s left side,barely standing, his knees shaking, blood slowly dripping from the corner of his mouth, indicating severe internal bleeding. Sasuke struck with all the energy he could muster at the time, and threw a kunai from his right hand at Naruto`s head. Because of his blurry eyesight, he didn`t hit between the eyes like he wanted to, instead, the kunai made a slash on Naruto`s left side of the neck, cutting his carotid artery.

Naruto`s eyes widened in shock, his hands instinctivley flew and grabbed his own neck to stop the blood from leaving his body. The dirt was soaked in blood as Naruto was walking towards the river, completley disoriented. He fell into the cold water, and the current carried him out of sight.

5 minutes later

Kakashi was rushing towards the Valley of the end, getting there as soon as possible was only thought in his head. When he came to the edge of the cliff, he saw Sasuke at the bottom on the other side of the river, trying to climb was nowhere to be seen. His one eye widened in horror when he saw a large pool of blood by the river. He figured out what happened when he saw that the trail of blood was leading to the river. His mind was torn, he could search for Naruto and leave Sasuke at the mercy of Orochimaru, or he could retrieve Sasuke, but it would start raining soon so even if there would be a trail to follow, it would soon disappear.

After a few seconds, one final thought went trough his mind before he jumped down,

`I`m sorry... Minato-sensei.´


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1

It was few hours past noon when Kakashi arrived to Konoha gates with unconcious Sasuke on his back. One guard at the gate immediately took Sasuke to get him to te hospital, while

the other stayed behind to take care of a very tired Kakashi. Kakashi sat down, his sad expression never leaving his covered face.

"Wasn`t there supposed to be another one with you, that Uzumaki kid?" the Chunin asked.

"He... he is dead..." Kakashi said with a lot of sadness in his voice, he was on the verge of tears.

They both heard something fall to the ground, and when they turned they saw Hyuuga Hinata on her knees, with a look of disbelief on her face, tears quickly forming in her eyes.

At the same time Naruto woke up with a big headache. His hand flew towards his neck, but he found no blood. He ran his fingers across his neck and found something thin and ragged along the

line where the several inch long cut was previously. He then noticed that there isn`t any pain in his entire body except his headache. Then he saw that he was in a small cave.

`How did I get here?´

"I brought you."

Naruto sat up and turned to see a Fox sitting behind him, Naruto met talking animals before, but meeting a talking fox that has nine tails can only mean one thing.

`Oh hell no, he somehow got out, I`m not strong enough to stop him, but maybe i can...wait why does all this sound familiar?´

"Once again, I am surprised by both your bravery and your stubidity. I don`t have much time in your world, so just shut up and listen carefully and do what I say."

Naruto nodded, he somehow felt at ease with the fox without all the threats for life.

"I have managed to heal most of your injuries, but you will always have a scar on your neck, because i just couldn`t fix it at the time. I had to put most of your organs into overdrive so to speak, i

pumped them full of demonic chakra so you could stay alive, the connection between our two minds is now better so with the use of my own chakra i can shortly manifest myself in your world.

Now for the most important part, I may have healed you completely, but the sideffects WILL come and they will be painfull, it`s not something that you can go through alone, so you need to get

back to your village and stay in the hospital."

"How much time do I have?" Naruto asked with a serious expression, he knew this was important and he had to focus on this.

"You have been asleep for a few hours, and the sideffects should start affecting you in about 40-50 hours."

"I can reach Konoha in a few hours if i didn`t go far from the valley"

"You also lost a lot of blood, the amount you lost even before you fell in the river is more than enough to be announced KIA." When Naruto heard this his eyes slightly widened.

"You can even attend your own funeral." Fox said with a smirk

"Shut up baka-Kitsune, they`ll see that i`m still alive and then they`ll give me back my status as a Konoha ninja" Kyuubi growled at the way Naruto called him but shook it of.

"I`ll mentally talk to you if there is something suspicious around,oh and your body will probably feel strange for the first few minutes of running or jumping." with that said the fox dissapeared

in a small burst of flames.

Whitout saying a word, Naruto got up and left the cave. He headed towards Konoha.

A few hours later

The sun was slowly setting and the sky in Konoha was turning a shade of orange, the favorite color of the most unpredictable ninja of the village. The said ninja was slowly coming closer to the

walls of the village, but then he heard the demon inside him.

"This is far enough kid, now get to the ground so I can prepare you."

Without a word Naruto landed on his feet and sat in a meditative position. The fox already explained what`s coming next, but still, something has changed inside him, he somehow knew that this

day will change his entire life, and the problem was, that he didn`t know if it`s for the better or for worse. He already asked the fox about Sasuke but he didn`t know anything. They both agreed

that he is most probably announced KIA by now, so they decided that they would connect their senses to find out what is happening inside before coming in.

After a few minutes of peaceful sitting Naruto opened his eyes,

`So? What`s happening inside?´

"Well, the mission seems to be a success, Hyuuga kid, Akimichi kid, Inuzuka kid and his dog are in the hospital, but they will survive."

After another 5 minutes of meditating Naruto opened his eyes for the second time.

"Kit... I`m sorry..." Said the fox in a defeated tone.

`What? Come on tell me.´ Naruto said alarmed, because you don`t hear an apology from the Demon Lord every day.

"I heard some... sounds, so I made a projection to get through the walls and see what`s happening. They think you`re dead."

`Well, that`s not unexpected, you said I left a lot of blood, enough to change my status from "Active" to "Killed In Action"´ Naruto said still not understanding what`s going on.

"That`s not all, most of the shinobi of the village are around town, but the villagers are... celebrating, they keep saying they`re celebrating the return of the Uchiha kid, but they keep talking

about the "Demon Kid" being dead." This left Naruto frozen, for a few hours he actually thought that they would be happy because he came back, there are still people that care about him, but

that number will get smaller when the council reveals to the younger generation about the demon he has inside him.

But still, he couldn`t bring himself to hate the villagers, his dream was to become their protector, but what if they don`t want to be protected by him? Then his dream needs to change. He will go

around the world alone, that way he won`t be hurt when they leave him. He will help people that need help, he won`t care about making a mark in history, Uzumaki Naruto is dead, he won`t have

a name anymore. He will leave Konoha behind, and start a new life in which he has nothing to lose. But first he needs to get to his apartment and take all that he thinks is important to him. He

thought about waiting for tomorrow, but decided against it because he still didn`t now where will he stay when the sideffects of the demonic chakra in his body start acting.

Few minutes later

Naruto was inside the walls of Konoha, using his Oiroke no jutsu in a modified form to get past the guards was very easy. He slowly went towards his apartment, using only back alleys and

shadows to move around.

He got close to the apartment and could see people standing there. He was in an alley behind them, so he got closer to hear what are they talking about. His jacket was long gone, it was ripped

apart and couldn`t be salvaged so he was in his ripped, black t-shirt and his orange pants that were now full of blood and dirt. He masked his chakra with the help of the fox and got closer.

He recognized all of the people there, Jiraiya was standing there holding Tsunade while she was crying on his shoulder. It broke`s Narutos heart to see Tsunade like that. All of the Konoha 12

were there except him, Sasuke, Neji, Chouji, Kiba, Akamaru and Hinata.

`Where`s Hinata? Oh right she`s probably at the party.´

"I doubt that kit." Naruto didn`t know what he meant by that so he just shook his head and listened what they were saying.

Ayame was quietly sobbing with Teuchi trying to comfort her. Lee was on his crutches comforting Sakura. Iruka was comforting Konohamaru and his friends. All of the senseis except Kurenai

were already there, then Naruto saw that she was also coming down the road. When she arrived she stood behind Shino,

"Kurenai-sensei, how is Hinata?" At this Naruto felt some strange pain in his stomach, for some reason he was afraid for Hinata.

Kuranai sighed and said,

"She is still in shock, when she is awake she can`t stop crying, when she is asleep she keeps saying Naruto`s name. She loved him so much..." Naruto was stunned.

`Hinata was in love...with me? But, she was always...´ Then Naruto saw all the times he would look at her, and she would blush. She was never chasing Sasuke, then his heart started to hurt and a

strange feeling came over him, he didn`t want her to suffer because of him. He was stupid to not notice the signs of her affection. He was soon brought to reality when he saw another figure

among all the people in front of his apartment.

It was Tazuna, the old man from the wave country.

He moved back, he didn`t want to listen to them anymore, he wanted to just think about all he heard now.

Few hours later

All the people went to their own homes, and Naruto sneaked into his apartment, he could see that no one was inside since he left for the mission. He quickly grabbed aa few t-shirts, jackets and

pants. He thought about taking the few photos he had but decided against it, since it would be suspicious, and this part of his life is over. He then stood in the middle of the room and looked

around for the last time and remembered all the people that were outside of his apartment a few hours ago.

He sat down at the desk and started writing a goodbye letter but made it look like it was written before he went on the mission.

He told Tsunade and Jiraiya that they were closest thing to parents he ever had and that they should at least go out a few times.

He told Sakura that she was always like a big sister to him, and that she sould start learning medical jutsu because she would be a great doctor.

He told Teuchi and Ayame that they were the first to see him and not the Kyuubi, that they shouldn`t worry for their buisness and asked everyone to go to Ichiraku`s sometime.

He thanked Iruka and Kakashi for being his uncles, and that he had some of the best time of his life with them.

He told Konohamaru to do a prank for him every once in a while.

He asked Lee to keep training and never give up because he is a true genius.

He ordered Neji to take Tenten out on a date.

He told Chouji and Shino to never let opinions of other people get to them, that they just needs to do their best and that is enough.

He told Shikamaru that he will one day find himself a worthy opponent in shogi, and that maybe he could try with Temari.

He told Ino that she could also be a good doctor if she wanted to.

He apologized to Kiba for not giving him a rematch.

In the last part of the letter he wrote:

If Sasuke is there then I fulfilled my promise to you Sakura-chan, and if Sasuke is reading this then I want you to know Sasuke, that we have been through a lot together, even though I don`t

know what will happen on the mission, i can guess that I caught up with you and that we fought. If you are reading this and I haven`t come back, I want you to know that I see you like a brother

and I could never hate you for anything you do to me. Even if you are the reason why I didn`t come back, I forgive you.

Hinata, I am sorry for everything, I have been such an idiot, it took me so long to understand why do you act the way you do. I would like to know more about you, but I don`t think that is now

possible. You never insulted me, you were worried about me, and you looked up to me, it took me so long to realise that I really like you.

Konohamaru, I`m very sorry for not being able to be your rival, remember what I told you and do your best future Rokudaime Hokage.

In the end I would like to ask all of you to stop looking back, and continue with your lives. I don`t like it when people suffer because of me, so if any one is crying stop it now, I`ll always be with

you, only now you won`t see me.

Uzumaki Naruto

As he wrote the letter tears were forming in his eyes, but he kept them from falling. he folded the paper and got up. Taking one last look at his apartment he left locking the door and a part of his

life with it. He had only one other place to go before leaving Konoha behind him. In a few minutes of sneaking around he pound himself on the roof of the targeted building, he used a small

amount of demon chakra to find the person he was searching for. After about 30 seconds of deep concentration he opened his eyes and a small smile was visible on his lips, he jumped and used

chakra to stick to the walls and climt to the third floor. After coming in through an opened window he quickly glanced at Kurenai sleeping in her chair. Slowly going towards Hinatas bed his heart

started beating faster, when he saw her face under the moonlight he thought,

`She`s so beautiful... I was such an idiot´ He got closer, leaned in and gently kissed her on the lips.

This action made Hinata slowly stir in her sleep, at which Naruto whispered in her ear,

"One day, one day we`ll be together, I promise Hinata-chan"

He then quickly turned and left towards the window. Hinatas eyes slowly opened, and she saw movement in the room, she saw a figure aproaching the window and all she could see was his

silhouette, but when her eyes noticed the hair, she could not help but be shocked,

`It can`t be real... can it? But this dream was different, he said we would be together one day...´ her hand touched her lips, and then she knew what happened, he left Konoha, but he didn`t leave

her. She then made a promise to herself, that she will become stronger, she will become strong enough to be by his side, she will prove herself worthy of being with him, starting tomorrow she

will train as hard as her body allows her. A small smile made it`s way to her lips and she fell asleep once again, only this time there weren`t any nightmares about Naruto`s death.

On a hill overlooking Konoha, half an hour later

"So, where to next...Kyuubi-sensei" Naruto asked with a serious expression.

"We`ll head towards Wave country, you know some people there and I`m sure they would gladly take you in for a few weeks." the nine-tailed fox sitting next to Naruto said.

"We can`t get there in only one day, where will we stay to rest? And won`t it be dangerous to stay in one place for a few weeks?" Naruto asked still, with his serious expression, not turning away

from the sight of Konoha.

"There are a few small civilian villages on the way so we`ll stay in one of them, and we`ll have to stay in one place for a few weeks because youl be uncouncious for at least 2-3 weeks, you also

need to tink about changing your looks a little, since they will recongnise you instantly in wave country."

Naruto nodded in understanding, but inside he was confused,

"Kyuubi-sensei, somehow, all of this... I just thought I would be sad about leaving all my friends here..."

"You are kit, I`m using my chakra to send small pulses in your brain to control all those emotions, you`ll have time to sort them out later while you`re unconcious." Naruto nodded in

understanding, took a deep breath and turned around to face his future. Then he started walking southeast towards the Wave country, Kyuubi behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 2

It was after midnight and Naruto was walking through the woods towards the wave country. He complained to the fox several times how boring it was, since the fox refused to answer any of his

questions. He was walking alone for the past few hours, constantly alert that there may be some sort of danger around. The nine-tailed fox that was at first walking with him was now back

inside him and he was coming closer to the village which they agreed will be their first stop on the way to the Wave country.

"Kit, do you smell that?"

`Yes, the villagers and a group of people coming closer to the village.´Naruto responded to Kyuubi.

"The village should be over that small hill, get to the top so we can see what`s happening" Kyuubi said, with Naruto doing so without a word.

Once he got to the top, he laid down, and focused some demonic chakra to his senses, so he could find out what was happening. It took some time but they found out that some kind of bandits

were harassing the villagers and they probably requested help from Konoha shinobi, but the bandits were here and they probably knew about the request, since they started looting and taking

women and children with them. Kyuubi was barely able to persuade Naruto into following them instead of just charging in while they were in the village. After another hour the bandits were on

their way, and Naruto was close behind. He followed them for a few more kilometers to a cave in which the were storing all their loot. It was obvious that they weren`t ninja, some of them

probably had basic training but they weren`t skilled. After some planning with the fox inside his head, he went forward, watching not to trigger any of the traps that were placed around the

entrance.

After taking care of the two sleepy guards with the combination of a Kage Bunshin and a hit to the back of the head, he turned towards the cave and was about to enter when the fox said,

"Kit, you have to finish them."

`What, but I don`t want to..´ He didn`t get a chance to finish as the fox interrupted him.

"They wouldn`t hesitate to kill you, and don`t tell me that you forgot all about your dream, how will you protect people without killing the bad guys, these guys are doing this willingly, they

chose this path in their lives, you have sworn to stop all those that follow that path, so start!" Naruto wanted to say something, but he knew that the fox was right, he would have to kill sooner or

later, and at least he can give them a clean death.

After quickly ending their lives with a kunai to the heart, he went inside the cave.

30 minutes later

A group of people ran out of the cave, running towards the village. Since the cave was made of many rooms and corridors, he first took care of the guards and freed all the women and children.

He was never really good at stealth, but with a demon helping him, he could be good at almost anything, he managed to kill a dozen bandits without them even knowing he was there, only one

who was left was their leader, who was by skill a high Genin, he had a sword strapped to his lower back, the hilt on his right side. The battle was short but fierce, the man was in his mid thirties

and he obviously had experience in fighting with a combination of kenjutsu and taijutsu, however he lacked speed, because Naruto was much smaller and it was easy to avoid all the slashes and

deliver a few strong kicks followed by a shuriken in the head. After cheking the rooms for any more survivors, he made two dozen shadow clones to carry all the loot the bandits have stolen from

the people, he took the sword and strapped it to his lower back like the leader of the bandits, and after taking some money for himself he took some robes and tried them on. After he was fully

clothed he was in a dark brown robe with a hood covering his hair color and a fake ANBU mask covering his face. His clones were ahead and he told them to stop and transform into different

people so the people wouldn`t suspect anything. He wouldn`t have thought of it if the fox hadn`t warned him, the last thing he needed was a story of a man who knows a Konoha forbidden

tehnique, and there are only a few people who can make it.

When he got to the village the villagers were scared but after they saw that he isn`t attacking them they stayed and watched him and his group of more than 20 men carry their stolen goods. The

villagers that were taken were already back and the entire village was up and waiting what would happen next. The clones placed all of the supplies on a pile in the middle of the small village, the

village itself had no more than 50 buildings, and most of them were old shacks. After making sure that all his clones were done he thought about making them all disperse, but quickly decided

against it since it would ruin his cover, hewaved goodbye them and they silently left towards the woods. He then turned and walked towards the nearest villager who was visibly afraid, but

Naruto was walking in a non-threathening manner and that seemed to keep the old man from running away. When he got close enough he asked the old man,

"Tell me, who is in charge here?" Using a calm tone, which further calmed the man, who thenn towards a big man in the crowd.

The "man in charge" visibly tensed when he was pointed to, even though he tried to hide it. Naruto then walked up to him and said,

"I would like to talk to you in private." the man nodded and led Naruto inside one of the bigger houses in the village. After they were inside Naruto noticed a woman, who was probably the wife of

the leader of the village. she was watching from inside the house and saw everything that happened, then Naruto noticed a small boy, no more than 5 years old, he recognised him as one of the

taken villagers. Since Naruto was carefull about hiding his face from the villagers in the cave they probably wouldn`t recognise him, but he still needed to be carefull. The man led him to a small

room with a table and a few chairs, it seemed to be some sort of a dining room. After they sat down, the village leader said,

"Now who are you and where did you get all that stuff outside?"

Naruto calmly explained that he was travelling and that he met the group they saw, they saw that the bandits attacked, and decided to follow them. After explaining that he is a traveller and

would like to stay the rest of the night in the village,and avoiding all questions about his identity but the man saw that and asked him,

"What is your name? What do I tell the people of the village when they ask me who saved their children?" the man asked in a cautious tone.

"I don`t have a name anymore, I am not wanted where I was born, and people of my village would like nothing more than to see me dead. So now, I am dead, I am starting a new life without

nothing to lose, if I live long enough I may find something worth living for. But right now, I have only one person, and neither of us are ready yet. On a different matter, will all the stuff I brought

back be enough payment for a night of sleep without disturbance and a single meal in the morning? And you don`t need to worry about all the other people you saw, they decided to travel the

entire night." the man was surprised that his own people would want him dead, since he is clearly a good person.

"Of course, I would even offer you more, but I have a feeling that you would refuse to stay any longer. You can stay at my house, follow me so you can see where will you be sleeping." at that

Naruto nodded, and they both got up.

After the man showed Naruto his room, he said,

"Well, I`ll leave you to settle in. Thank you for saving my son from those bandits. I understand what your path is, you should think of a nickname for yourself, I`ll have to explain everything to

the villagers." After a few moments of silence, Naruto finally said,

"You can call me The Red Fox" then Naruto turned around, and went to lie down for the night.

Tommorow morning around 9 am

Naruto woke up after a few hours of sleep with another headache, this time it was even worse than before, he got up, got dressed, and he was about to put his mask on when he decided to change

it a little. He took out a kunai and made three scratches across each cheek, he then cut his finger and made 9 tails of blood on the forehead, going from the center of the mask all over the forehead.

Kyuubi was impressed by the design of the mask and said something Naruto would never expect to hear from the Demon Lord,

"Kit, I`m actually starting to like you..." Naruto just smiled, and took his forehead protector.

Before putting it on he made a horizontal scratch over the Konoha emblem. He placed it above his forehead like Sakura, that way it helped in taming his wild hair and didn`t get in the way for the

mask. After he was fully clothed he got out of the room taking all his belongings with him. He slowly found his way to the dining room and saw the entire family there. Wife was making the

breakfast, the man of the house was drinking tea at the table, and their son was helping his mother. When they saw him enter the room they weren`t afraid, instead they smiled, the wife even

made a deep bow and said,

"Thank you very much for saving my son from those people." Naruto made bowed, and replied,

"I only did what was the right thing to do."

The kid also bowed and said a simple `thank you´ before returning to help his mother with breakfast. Naruto simply sat down at the table and waited for the breakfast.

"Would you like anything special for breakfast?" the woman asked without turning around.

"No. Whatever you are having is fine." Naruto said.

After a few more minutes of waiting the woman started bringing out different dishes of food, there seemed to be a lot more than what they were used to, but Naruto just shrugged it off. Naruto

stared at the food in front of him for a few seconds, then he decided that he will take off his mask in front of them, these people were nice to him, he could at least show them his face. He took of

the mask and placed it at the side of the table, the man seemed to tense at the site of the slashed forehead protector and the woman seemed sad when she saw his face and realised that he was

indeed just a boy. Naruto said his prayer and slowly started eating, the last time he ate something was before the mission to get Sasuke. He ate slowly, not wanting to offend the people that took

him in, and the people ate with him. He was very hungry and he was able to eat a lot, it took him half an hour to get full, after he was finished he placed on his mask and got up. He turned to the

people in the house and deeply bowed,

"Thank you for your hospitality and your food." the man smiled and bowed back,

"If you ever need help, just come and ask, this village owes you much, but what should we say to the shinobi from Konoha, we already sent for a mission..."the man asked, getting a little worried

about mentioning Konoha.

"Tell them that The Red Fox came, that you don`t know who I am, and that you can`t describe me, that should be enough." Naruto replied and turned towards the door to leave.

When he came out he started walking through the village, his next stop, Wave country. During his walk through the village he noticed the looks the villagers gave him, only this time, the looks

were nice and warm, the children were looking at him in awe, and the older people gave him the looks full of satisfaction. They were glad that there were still people who are willing to help total

strangers by risking their lives.

He got out of the village with a smile on his lips, this village actually liked him, true they didn`t know about the Kyuubi, but noone would accept him if they knew about the Demon inside him. He

just prayed to Kami that Tazuna didn`t know about it.

At the same time in Konoha

Tsunade was waiting patiently in front of the hospital room, she found the letter in his apartment, and saw that all the rookies, Iruka, Ayame, Teuchi, Kakashi, herself and Jiraiya should be

present at the reading of the letter. She arranged for all the rookies in the hospital be transferred in the same room. She didn`t want to come in since Sasuke was inside and she was afraid that

she would kill him. While Sasuke was asleep, Jiraiya found a way to completely block out the cursed seal, and when Sasuke woke up, he didn`t try to run, he didn`t speak to anyone, he simply

stayed silent and stared into nothing. He seemed to be sorry, but Tsunade couldn`t risk it, she knew that she would just snap his neck if she was alone with him. Slowly all the invited people

arrived, Neji, Chouji and Kiba were in their beds, rest of the rookies were pushing them through the corridors. They all knew about the demon, she told them along with Tazuna, and had to allow

him to hold the funeral in Wave country, since she knew that Naruto`s final resting place would never be honored in Konoha.

She couldn`t force herself to open the letter and read it, so she called for a nurse that never acted hostile towards Naruto. Once they were all gathered they came inside the room, since they all

knew what happened between Sasuke and Naruto, a terrible killer intent washed over the entire room, all of it directed towards Sasuke. He didin`t move, he was just sitting there looking at his

hands in his lap. The room was pretty big, only one bed, several chairs were in the room, and two ANBU were watching Sasuke. Tsunade signaled them to get out of the room, when they were

outside Tsunade started,

"Naruto left a letter... You were all called here, because that`s what he wanted."

"Are you sure that there isn`t one person too much here Hokage-sama?" Neji started staring at Sasuke,

"No, it says that he should hear the contents of the letter too." Tsunade then gave the letter to the nurse and sat down.

That letter changed many lives that day, Sakura and Ino asked Tsunade to teach them medicine, Jiraiya and Tsunade decided that it`s time to at least see if there is anything between them,so did

Neji and Tenten. Many tears were shed in that room, most surprisingly at the end when Naruto forgave Sasuke for everything, Sasuke started crying, his eyes were covered by his hair but tears

were falling on his lap. Everyone started remembering evry time when they hurt Naruto, physicaly or emotionally, and they regretted all of it. After all the patients were back in their rooms, Ino

and Sakura went to prepare themselves for medical training, Tenten, Hinata, Shino, Lee and surprisingly Shikamaru, all went training. Hinata trained until she fainted from exhaustion, and she

had to be carried home. They were all going to the funeral tomorrow.

Elsewhere

It took him 6 more hours of silent traveling through the thick forest to get to the "Great Naruto Bridge".

`I thought they were just joking when they said they would name the bridge after me...´

"Well, they obiously weren`t joking, Tazuna might accept you even with me inside you"

`I hope so, because this is my laste chance, and they probably think I`m dead since Tazuna was in Konoha, and he should arrive soon too, since I was avoiding all the roads´

He then started slowly walking over the bridge. He wanted to wait for the old man to come home before he made his presence known to them. Going through town was interesting, few people

would stare at him, he looked like a hunter nin so peole would stay out of his way, and not pay attention to him. The entire place was a lot cleaner than the last time he was made his way

to the hill overlooking the village and turned to the two graves in the clearing. He kneeled down in front of them and told a silent prayer for their souls. After that he mentally silently with them,

he talked about all that happened, the fox was outside and on guard for any intruders. As he finished talking he said another prayer and just stared at their graves. The sun was already low, he

was talking for hours, and then the fox came to him,

"Someone is coming, hide behind the trees." Naruto silently did so.

After a few minutes a familiar figure came from the direction of the village,

`I...Inari?´

Inari kneeled down in front of the two graves with tears in his eyes, Naruto was worried about him, so he enhanced his hearing and listened to Inari. After a few minutes of listening Naruto had a

small simpathetic smile on his lips, Inari was crying because his hero was dead, he was crying because of him. After Inari left Naruto slowly followed. When he came to the house with his

enhanced hearing he listened to what was happening inside,

"...that`s a stupid reason!" the female voice said.

"I know, I`ll go to the mayor tomorrow and ask that he breaks all trade agreements with Konoha, to think they would treat a hero that way, he protected their village from a Demon Lord all his

life!" male voice said.

"He`s even a bigger hero than any of us thought." a young voice continued.

Naruto smiled under his mask and knocked on the door, he couldn`t wait for their reaction when they see him here.

The doors opened and he saw a face of an old friend.

"How may I help you?" said Tazuna a bit unnerved by the mask wearing boy.

"I was wondering if I could stay at your house for some time?" said Naruto with a muffled voice that Tazuna didn`t recongise.

"I`m sorry but I don`t think I know you."

"You do know me, but I can`t take my mask off outside, can I please come in?" Naruto said in a non-threatening voice.

After some thinking Tazuna nodded and moved out of the way for the boy with a mask.

Tsunami and Inari were both surprised by the appearance of the figure with a scary mask. After they all sat down, Tazuna started,

"Well then, who are you, you said that you can`t take off the mask outside."

"Very well..." Naruto said and brought his hand over the mask, he took off his forehead protector and placed it on the table before taking off his mask. To say that they were shocked would be an

understatement. Their eyes were wide, their mouth wide open, they were trying to speak, but couldn`t find any words in them.

"I`m sorry for coming here, but I need a favor." Naruto began seeing that they need some time to recover from the shock.

After a few moments Tazuna recovered and started shooting questions at Naruto, he explained everything from the Sasuke`s departure to his arrival in Wave country. They took him in and told

him that his funeral will be held in Wave country tomorrow. He thought about going but decided against it, even though he would get to see some of his friends again. He also found out that all

his friends were informed about the Kyuubi, few of them were shocked and started seeing him differently, most of them have found even more respect for him, Shikamaru already knew since he

figured it out by himself. Shino knew it was something, but didn`t know what exactly, Ino, Sakura, Tenten, Lee were all surprised but agreed that Naruto is not a Demon. Hinata was quite

surprising the morning she woke up, she immediately started training hard, and when she found out she just said,

"I know he`s not a demon and I still love him" , with a smile on her face, and left to train more. That left all of the rookies and all of the senseis shocked, she was smiling, she was training as hard

as she could, she didn`t stutter, she openly admitted that she loved him, and didn`t even care about the was surprised, last he heard she was an emotional wreck, he didn`t

understand what happened to her so that she would change like this.

"Kit, it may have something to do with the fact that she was awake when you kissed her..." said the kyuubi mentally with a chuckle, and Naruto blushed an impossible shade of red.

Tsunami just giggled while Inari was confusingly looking at Naruto.

They spent the next few hours talking in a relaxed manner. They agreed on telling the rest of the country that Naruto is dead and that most of Konoha is happy for it, that way any friends Naruto

has will be forced to leave right after the funeral instead of visiting Tazuna and Tsunami. After he explained what he needed them to do while he is unconcscious, they all had dinner together and

went to their rooms for the night.

Day of the funeral

Naruto woke up, once again with a headache, this time even greater than the last time. It soon passed like all the others, and he went downstairs for breakfast, it was already 10 am, so he spent

the next few hours prepairng everything vith Tsunami, cold water, clean towels, and similar since the Kyuubi informed him about all that they will need. Tazuna sent the messages last night

about the funeral, and they have agreed that he will be buried with Zabuza and Haku early in the afternoon. After everyone was prepared to leave for the funeral, the Kyuubi told Naruto that he

should lie down since the effects will start soon.

Naruto was lying on the bed, Tsunami kneeling next to him, Kyuubi teaching Naruto how to make a tehnique similar to Tanuki Neiri no Jutsu (Forced sleep tehnique)

"Have fun on my funeral." Naruto said with a small smile,

"That`s not funny, we`ll have to pretend that you really are dead." Tsunami said also with a small smile on her lips. Tsunami and Naruto have made a strong bond, they were like a mother and

son, and Inari didn`t mind since he already started calling Naruto his nii-san.

Naruto said while performing the seals,

"Well, good night, see you in a few weeks... Jiga Kensei no Jutsu." And with that he fell asleep.

Naruto`s mindscape

"Well, how do we do this?" Naruto asked.

"Patience kit, you`ll be reliving all the emotional moments again, only this time, you`ll feel everything. Keep your mind focused, you need to resolve this now, I don`t need an emotional wreck for

a vessel."Kyuubi said in a stern voice.

"Right, anything else i should know about?"

"Keep your mind on your dream kit,oh and...good luck." with that Naruto felt a strange feeling like something was pulling him from behind and then, suddenly after a white flash, he saw his

battle at the Valley Of the End.

Outside world

Tsunami placed another wet towel on Naruto`s forehead and stood up, before she left for the funeral, she turned around again to look at hi, hus eyes were twitching, his body was sweating, his

face was red from the heat. She didn`t want to leave him but she had to. She had to leave him so she could go to his funeral.

The funeral

The ceremony was big, only few people in the entire country didn`t go to it, so there were hundreds of people gathered around the grave, while up front were the few Konoha shinobi. They were

all given the looks of hatred and disgust, even though the ceremony itself was short in duration, it was extremely emotional, and many were crying. The people of the Wave country knew about

the demon and they didn`t care, that made the rookies question the will of fire they were all told about as kids, and with the looks they were getting from the people, they knew how Naruto felt as

a kid, it only strengthened their respect for him. They left soon after the ceremony, most of them that is, since Hinata noticed strange behavior of Tazuna and his family, she told the rest of the

rookies that she`ll catch up with them, she just needs some time alone.

As she got to their house she was about to knock, but first she silently made a few hand sings and whispered,

"Byakugan" she searched the house and found that everyone is in the same room gathered around a lying figure.

She would always recongnise his chakra signature so she immediately knew who was lying on a bed.

She burst through the door and ran to the second floor and straight into the room,

"Naruto-kun..." she froze when she saw him lying there, sweating, with a wet towel on his head.

"Dammit! I knew that I should have stayed downstairs, now everyone will know that he`s alive..." said Tazuna,

"What`s wrong? Is he okay? How is he?" Hinata started shooting questions at Tsunami.

"You must be Hinata." Hinata nodded, "Were you followed?" Hinata shook her head, her eyes never leaving Naruto.

"Come on, let`s leave give them some privacy." Tsunami said and had to pull Tazuna and Inari out of the room.

Hinata sat next to Naruto, and looked at his face, she then did something that would make her old self faint instantly. She kissed Naruto, and whisperd to his ear

"Now, we`re even, I`ll be waiting for that day." she moved away and heard him mumbling in his sleep,

"...Hinata...chan...so pretty..." at this Hinata could not do anything else than blush,

`He...He`s dreaming about ME? He even called me pretty...´ Just when she started daydreaming like her old self she noticed someting,

`Wait, is that... a nosebleed?´ her eyes widened, Naruto was having a more "eventful" dream about them, her thoughts were stopped when she heard a deep chuckle from behind her, coming from

a small fox with nine tails.

"I just had to do that, oh where are my manners, You may call me Kyuubi," at this Hinata tensed and got in a defensive stance between Naruto and the fox," Oh? Another brave one, you two make

a nice couple. Anyway I have no desire to fight anyone, all I am here for is to inform you that I will be teaching him from now on, I will give him power but it is up to him to decide how to use it.

You are perfect for him, so I will give you a gift, something that will allow you two to meet once in a while." Hinata dropped her stance and looked at the fox with a questioning look,

"Don`t talk, just do what I say, cut your finger and hold out your hand." After a few seconds of thinking about all the fox said, Hinata did what was asked and held out her hand. The fox came

over to her and licked the blood off her finger, as soon as it did that the finger instantly healed.

"Now for the explanation, every once in while during your dreams you will find yourself in a forest, walk around and you will meet Naruto, he too will be dreaming and he will see you so you two

can spend about an hour or two talking. You both have to be sleeping, You need to be calm and don`t expect it t work every night. Oh, he`s going by the name "The Red Fox" now, he`ll be walking

around the world helping those who need help, and before you ask, he used a lot of my power, now we`re connected, he`s becoming stronger and I`m becoming... "nicer", ugh, i hate that word"

said the Kyuubi, leaving Hinata confused,

"Now leave, he`ll be like that for at least another 2 weeks and you can`t help in any way." after finishing the last sentence, the fox dissapeared in a small burst of flames.

Hinata needed to think over everything she heard from the fox, so after few more minutes of looking at the love of her life, she left the room, apologized to Tazuna and Tsunami, and finally

promised them that she won`t say anything about him being alive.

She left the house with a smile.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 3

It has been almost 3 full years since the battle at the Valley Of the End, and everyone has grown stronger. The Red Fox has been all around the world, gathering allies and making enemies.

The Red Fox is no longer a person, now it is one of the most feared mercenary groups, no one knows exactly how many people follow The Red Fox, some people say there is more than 300 of them, but those are all just wild guesses. Right now one elite member of that group was walking through the streets of Sunagakure, it was a female wearing a black hooded cloak. On her back was a sign that she was a member of the elite followers of The Red Fox, a large red head of the fox with six tails swirling above it`s head. It was well known that only the closest to The Red Fox wear these cloaks, and more tails equals more power, thus the The Red Fox himself was wearing a cloak with 9 tails, just like the most powerful fox in the history. The cloaked figure was also wearing a mask on the face, also with six tails made of blood on the forehead. The people were all bowing to the figure and moving away.

The woman was heading towards the Kazekage tower, she had specific orders from the Red Fox. As she came closer to the entrance the shinobi who were following her from the entrance came closer and surrounded her, "Kazekage-sama is waiting for you, we will escort you to him, follow me." as she nodded, they entered the large building and went through many corridors to get to the large meeting room. In the room were many people,Gaara the Kazekage, his brother Kankuro, his sister Temari, His old mentor Baki, the elders of Suna with their bodyguards and some shinobi. The robed figure deeply bowed and said,

"Kazekage-sama, I am here to deliver a message to you from my master, I was told to wait for your reply." at this the figure slowly took out the scroll from under the cloak and stepped forward with it.

One of the jounin took the scroll and examined it`s exterior for any traps, after he was done he gave the scroll to Gaara. Gaara started reading the scroll, and everyone was around him waiting for his reaction to what the mysterious Red Fox has to say. Gaara`s reaction was surprising to say the least, his always stoic face somehow disappeared, his eyes widened, his mouth wide open. After the initial shock from the letter (needless to say that Gaara being shocked placed fear into all the people present except the woman who brought the message), Gaara said,

"Temari, Kankuro, Baki, you three are coming with me, I demand that you take me to your leader." At Gaara`s words everyone was shocked, elders protested , jounin offered to come as additional guard, and the rest were just watching between Gaara and the mysterious woman. A loud pop silenced everyone in the room, the sound that could scare everyone in the village was the sound of Gaara`s gourd opening.

The figure bowed again and said,

"I will be waiting for you outside the city walls." she bowed again and left the room with a few jounin following her.

It took Gaara half an hour to get ready and leave the city. Once they all met with the woman that was to lead them to The Red Fox, they left south into the desert. Gaara didn`t want to say to anyone what was in the scroll he recieved, not even to Temari and Kankuro. They arrived to a small camp filled with dozens of circular tents, shielded by dunes. They were led towards the largest tent in the middle and they entered. It was a large tent, but not very luxurious, it had a bed, a large table, few chairs, several scrolls on the table and a few more things covered by blankets. The mysterious Red Fox was sitting at the table turned towards them. He stood up as they entered and bowed to Gaara,

"Kazekage-sama, I welcome you to my home, and thank you for accepting my invitation." he motioned them to sit down across the table from him, two elite Red Foxes came in, one with 8, and one with 7 tails on their backs, they silently took their positions next to their leader. Before anyone could say anything, Gaara said,

"Who are you, or more importantly, explain what you wrote, that you were the last person who saw Naruto alive?" this statement shocked Gaara`s companions

"Both of those questions can be answered at the same time, but let me ask you something, how do you think Naruto died?"

"We all heard that he died from a Kunai to the neck artery, mind examination by the Yamanaka clan of Konoha confirmed that, and the amount of blood left behind was about 2 liters so..." the Red fox interrupted Gaara by raising his hand.

"Everyone has heard that story, the truth is he survived and went back to Konoha, but then he saw the villagers, the same ones that he protected and wanted to continue protecting... he saw them celebrating his death, he was young and his heart broke when he realized that his dream will never become reality, that they would never accept him completely. You are different, people saw you around the village and they would run, but with Konoha, the Demon has killed a lot of families, they would often try to... return the favor." after looking at the reaction of every one on the other side of the table, he decided,

`Not really what I was hoping for, I guess I`ll need to show them my face after all.´ the said, "And now to answer your questions..." with that he slowly removed his mask and placed it on the table; Deep blue eyes, three dark whisker marks on each cheek, it was undeniable, Uzumaki Naruto was alive and he was sitting in front of them.

"U-Uzumaki?" Gaara barely managed to say. Naruto gave his trademark grin and said,

"What`s wrong? You look like you`ve seen a ghost." Naruto joked.

Gaara noticed the slashed forehead protector covering his hair, and Naruto saw where Gaara was looking, he took it off showing his longer hair that was no longer pure blond, it had several dark orange streaks in it. After getting over the initial shock, he explained everything and made them promise not to say anything to anyone. They talked for a few hours, then Naruto asked a question which was the reason for coming to Suna.

"I understand that the chuunin exams will be held in Suna this december."

"Yes, is that why you wanted to talk to me?" Gaara asked,

"I have been watching over Konoha during my death and I have found that they have finally become more... "aware" of certain things they did, especially since the truth of my heritage has been revealed."

"Are you saying that I should invite the Godaime Hokage to the chuunin exams?" Gaara said slightly surprised that Naruto would be worried for Konoha`s alliances, after all that was done to him,

"I`m saying that you should give them another chance, because ever since I died, they have been losing a lot of influence in the world, I made sure of that."

"You know it won`t be that simple, we have distanced ourselves from Konoha and they will expect this to be a trap or an assassination attempt." Gaara said,

"Yes, I know, I want her to bring the rookies and their senseis as her bodyguards, and you can tell her that The Red Fox would like to see how the best of Konoha perform against some of his own since I will also be watching the exams. Oh, and if she wants to she can even try to beat me up, in a friendly match of course..." Naruto said smirking an evil smile that actually made Temari question his claims of not being a demon.

"A-Are you... serious?" Kankuro said with wide eyes, he saw on one occasion how the Hokage hit a man who mentioned the word demon in her presence, it was terrifiying to say the least.

"Of course, I don`t plan on revealing my identity to Konoha yet, but the only way to get them to come is to say that I`ll be there, all of Konoha hates me even more than when I was alive."

"Those were the days..." said a deep voice from behind Naruto, and suddenly from behind him a fox with nine tails jumped on the table next to the mask.

"Oh, Kyuubi, you`re awake." Naruto said with a smirk as his guests visibly tensed at the mention of the name Kyuubi, even though he had already explained that he is not a threat.

"What are you planning? Why do you want to help Konoha with an alliance? And how will I explain your presence to... anyone at all?" Gaara asked with a suspicious look,

"Well, you see, my plans won`t really work if Suna and Konoha start bickering over anything. But right now I want to see... someone from Konoha." Naruto said with a far-away look.

"And about the council, well we have done a great service to Suna, we have brought you a S-class missing nin from your village, unfortunately he is no longer amongst the living..."

"What? Who?" Baki asked, and Naruto glanced at Kankuro and said,

"Sasori." all of their eyes widened and one of Naruto`s bodyguards lifted a blanket from one of the objects and revealed Sasori`s inner body barely in one piece with a bloodied centerpiece.

"The man tried to turn himself into a living puppet. Oh and you can have all of his "toys", I don`t really have anyone that uses puppets in my group, although I suggest you first check them all over with that old woman, Chiyo, was it? Sasori is after all the one who killed your Sandaime Kazekage, or so he said." once again, the Suna guests were shocked, but Naruto`s serious face told them that he was telling them the truth.

In a few hours time Gaara was back in Suna, he headed straight to his office and started writing a letter that will be sent to Konoha, `This will be very... troublesome.´ he thought and started writing,as he remembered the man that used that phrase often.

At the same time in Otogakure

Orochimaru was sitting in his throne room in his underground village. Angry. Again. Kabuto just returned from another failed assassination attempt on the famous Red Fox. Orochimaru cursed that man and the day he was born, not even Konoha hated The Red Fox this much. The man would attack a lab, free the civilians an recruit the shinobi, take all the research information, and then notify the nearest hidden village. He had done that to over a dozen hidden labs, and since the hidden villages were giving bounties to the mercenarys that would take out any hidden labs, The Red Fox now had a fortune all because of Orochimaru. As if that wasn`t enough, after every attack, Orochimaru recieved a letter from The Red Fox, full of taunts and childish insults, Orochimaru was right now holding a letter like that in his hands, all of the letters had some interesting information that Orochimaru didn`t know of, like now,

... by the way Hebi-teme, it seems Konoha and Suna might be making an alliance soon, so soon that you won`t have time to make all the preparations for that invasion on Konoha you wanted to do, yes, i know about it, well since I`m running out of insults for this letter, until next time you old pedophile, I hope that Kabuto is satisfying your bedroom needs...

Orochimaru couldn`t take it anymore, the killing intent from him has frozen the Oto courier kneeling in front of him. Orochimaru needed something to release his rage on, and the messenger was the closest to him at the moment. There is no need to say that Orochimaru will need to find someone else to carrymessages. Again.

At the same time in Konohagakure no Sato

A messenger flew through the window of the Hokage`s office, the people looked towards the disturbance and many of them just shrugged,

`She`s in a bad mood again, must be something about that damned Red Fox...´

They were right, The Red Fox has sent another message to "Senju-hime" how he keeps calling her. He said that they may be meeting soon, and that he hoped she isn`t a bit rusty from all the paperwork, because he would be glad to have a friendly one-on-one match with her. This infuriated Tsunade, this man, made Konoha lose all respect it had in this world, he even talked to the Fire Daimyo and got the Konoha`s budget cut. A lot of Shinobi were out searching for him, but whenever they would manage to find his small army the would only return beaten, but there was never a dead konoha shinobi because of him. That`s what troubled Tsunade the most, his motives, he seemed to enjoy seeing Konoha humiliated, but he din`t want to harm any of the shinobi. Everyone except Konoha and Orochimaru loved him, even all the other hidden villages. He would help all the poor, he would protect the helpless, and he would always preach about injustice done to Naruto. That`s what Tsunade wanted to know, how does he know so much about Naruto?

Tsunade herself has changed since the loss of "The Blonde Menace". She concentrated more of her time on her paperwork, she cut down on her drinking habits, and she decided to make herself look a bit older. She still wore the same outfit only with less cleavage, her face looked older and more respective, she became better as a Hokage but despite all her efforts, the village kept falling and falling.

Recently though, The Red Fox eased up on destroying Konoha economy, that was also explained in the message,

... Oh, and you probably noticed that your economy is slowly recovering, that is happening only because I`m allowing for it to happen. You no doubt know that I have spies in Konoha, and I think that your people have suffered enough. I will be watching though. And I wish many years of happiness to both you and Jiraiya, I would send a present to you, but the only thing I can think of is a head of a certain Uchiha or maybe even Orochimaru. But I know that killing Itachi would make Sasuke miserable, and killing that Hebi-teme would make Jiraiya sad for not killing him himself, and that would reflect badly on your honeymoon. I WILL get you something, hmmm... maybe an alliance with another village...

Despite the weakened status of Konoha, it was still a strong force, what made all of Konoha worry was the fact that most other villages hate them, and Konoha would not be able to endure an attack by any sort of alliance between any of the villages. Tsunade calmed down, and looked at the sky through the window. She prayed that trouble for Konoha would be over soon.

Various places in Konoha

The Konoha Rookies, teams 7, 8, 9, 10, were no longer seperate teams, they were now the best squad of ninja in all of Hi no Kuni. They were first called the Konoha 12, then Naruto died, and before they could even become The Konoha 11, Sasuke was stripped of his rank and made a civilian. They were now The Konoha 10, they made it clear to the Hokage that they want no replacements for anyone they would lose, including Naruto.

Hinata was walking through the village, her destination was training ground 19. Out of all the Rookies, she has changed the most, both physically and mentally. She no longer wore baggy clothes, instead, she wore standard black shinobi pants with two dark red stripes on the sides, and a modified version of chakra plate armor. She was a captain of ANBU but her identity was well known to the villagers. She was now walking with her mask on her face, she specifically requested - a fox mask with 3 whisker marks on each cheek. Her armor was dark purple, almost black, her long hair was made into two braids going to the middle of her back.

She already placed several villagers in the hospital for talking badly about Naruto in front of her. She was still a nice and caring person, but when it came to Naruto, she could be almost as vicious as Tsunade. She still cared about the branch house, and tried her best to keep their suffering to a minimum, and she would often go to the orphanage to spend time with the children there. Her shyness was long gone, but she was far from being as loud as Naruto. She no longer stuttered, she would stand for her beliefs, and much more.

No one knew that this was mostly because of her time spent with Naruto in their dream world. She had dozens of encounters with the blonde ninja inside their dream world, it was no longer a foggy forest, now it was a sunny field of grass with a clear lake, and several clouds above. She didn`t encounter Naruto only in his dreams, they have met a few times. She was a captain of the ANBU, and she was often sent to find The Red Fox, off course the entire squad would get knocked out and she would get to spend a few precious hours with her Naruto. Still most of her missions were with The Konoha 10, and her constant training made sure she was strong enough to keep everyone alive. She was now the officiall heiress of the Hyuuga clan, and she would in a few years take the control of the clan.

The Hyuuga elders knew that Hinata would never marry any man since her heart belonged to Naruto, the were plotting to make her marry someone influential at her 18th birthday. But Hinata was not stupid, she recently found out about their plan, and she would not be able to do anything against it since it is a part of an old clan law. She kept quiet about it, and decided that she needed to talk about this with Naruto as soon as possible.

Tenten was practicing with her boyfriend Neji, He was trying to improve his Kaiten, and Tenten was trying to improve her weapon throwing strength. Neji was already a Jounin, while Tenten was still a Chunin. The have tried to go out listening to Naruto`s advice from his letter, and suprisingly for both of them, it worked perfectly. Neji was more realxed in his everyday life, while Tenten showed her feminine side more often. They were truly happy together. Neji decided to step up his training because Hinata, suprisingly, defeated Neji about a year ago, he was happy for her, but he needed to become strong too. Hinata surprised everyone with her new found strength, Neji knew that there was something more than just grief in her heart, but he didn`t want to meddle in it.

Sakura and Ino were in the hospital, healing the few shinobi that came injured from their missions, they were still rivals even though neither wanted Sasuke. They were personally trained by the Hokage herself and they were improving rapidly, Sakura was said to be so skilled that she would surpass the Slug Sannin some day. Ino was not as interested in body health as Sakura, instead she was specialised in the health of the brain and the nervous system, her Yamanaka clan abilities only made her a more powerful shinobi.

Shino and Kiba were in the forest, Shino was searching for bugs, and Kiba was training with Akamaru who was now large enough to carry Kiba. Shino, despite being known for not showing emotion, has admitted that he will miss Naruto a lot since both of them were avoided because of something inside of them. Shino decided that he too will not let the fact that he is avoided mess with him. Kiba and Akamaru were both sad, -Naruto was a great guy to be with and we both started to like him- said Kiba on one occasion.

Lee was seen running around Konoha. With Guy. On his hands. Backwards. Again. His choice of clothing changed, now, instead of a green spandex suit, he wore dark green shinobi pants with orange lines encircling his legs, and a dark green T-shirt, over which was his flak jacket. Lee was also sad when he heard that Naruto died, after all, Naruto was a hard worker like Lee.

Chouji was in his new battle armor which made him look like his father. He just returned from a long mission with a few other Chuunin and Genin, and he was very hungry. Now he was sitting in his favourite barbeque reastaurant, with a big kanabo strapped to his back, waiting for his meal. He would often go to Ichiraku`s and soon became their second best customer, the first place would always be Naruto.

Sasuke was in his apartment staring at the scroll he recieved a few hours ago, wondering about what should he do. The scroll said that if he wishes so, he will be allowed to become a Genin again,

`This must be the work of the council, Tsunade would never give me back my rank on her own´ thought Sasuke,

he already met a member of the council, a man named Danzo. Danzo tried to recruit Sasuke into his Ne ANBU with promises of power, Sasuke declined immediately.

`What would the rest of them say? They would probably kill me at he first sign of making trouble, not a problem, I decided years ago that I accept death so I guess...´ he lay down on his bed, and started thinking in more detail of his new life, more often thinking of ways he was going to get killed,

`Yes, Naruto can only be avenged by his closest people, a suicide would not bring him any honor in death...´ thinking more about his death, he fell asleep, again reliving that day at The Valley of The End.

Shikamaru was lying on the grass under a tree, watching the clouds. Every few minutes he would see something in the sky that reminded him of Temari, and after remembering her, he remembered the Nara clan "curse".

For a standard Nara male, a mother woul be a "very troublesome woman" and only a woman considered even more troublesome would be able to keep that Nara in line. Shikamaru thought that Temari truly is more troublesome than his mother, which got him thinking about him and Temari actually marrying. Then Shikamaru found a cloud that resembled a spiral, he thought of Naruto. He remembered Hinata`s random strange behavior, he remembered all he knew about her, all he knew about Naruto, and then he sat up. He muttered the word `troublesome´ and sat in his thinking position. It took him about 15 full minutes of thinking about everything related to both Naruto and Hinata. He suddenly opened his eyes,

"Damn you Naruto! But...why?" he said as he got up and went towards the training fields, he had a certain Hyuuga to question.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 4

It was two days after the unlucky messenger of Konoha ended up in the hospital

A messenger bird was making it`s way towards Konoha. Once it landed safe inside the messenger tower, the Jounin that was stationed there took the scroll from the bird. On the scroll was the symbol of Sunagakure and three simple words, -Hokage eyes only-. The Jounin quickly ran towrds the Hokage tower to deliver the message, however, he paused before entering the tower itself, thinking that this must be bad news and that he will probably end in a hospital. Luckily enough for him, he saw someone who was used to getting hit by the Hokage,

"Jiraiya-sama!" He yelled and ran towards the toad sage.

"Uh? Yes, what is it?"

"Um, sir I left the tower unattended, and... um... this message seems important, so I was wondering if you would..." when Jiraiya took the scroll to look at it the Jounin ran away. But Jiraiya was looking at the scroll and didn`t even notice the scared shinobi run. Tsunade showed him the message from The Red Fox, and he couldn`t help but hope that this would be a start of an alliance with Suna.

He completely forgot the temper that his old teammate has.

Various locations in Konoha in the next few hours

Sasuke was walking down the street heading towards his teams old training ground. He rarely walked out in the streets where he could be seen, he mostly used rooftops and back alleys. Now he was reminded why. He got looks from the population of Konoha, most of the shinobi and some villagers looked at him in disgust, few villagers even looked at him in fear, while the majority of people would just ignore him once they saw him. There were rumors about a goodbye letter from Naruto in which he forgave Sasuke if he ended up killing him, but those were rumors noone believed, Sasuke killed Naruto and that is what mattered the most to the villagers.

Konoha has fallen into poverty over the past few years, even the Hyuuga clan had to resort to budget cuts. The streets were bare, with most of the buildings showing signs of aging. There were no luxuries but things could be much worse, at least people survived.

Shikamaru was watching the clouds and thinking random thoughts. Hinata has managed to persuade him to be silent about Naruto.

`Troublesome women...´ after thinkin the word women in his head, he remembered Temari and the way Nara males find love,

`More like the love finds us, runs over us and beats us into submission with a giant fan...´ thought Shikamaru.

`Maybe I should have questioned Hinata more about Naruto, all I really found out is that he is alive, she knows about it and that I should keep my mouth shut or... ´at the last part of the thought, he gulped loudly and shiverred, Hinata can be truly intimidating somethimes.

While doing her daily training, Hinata sneezed,

`Naruto must be thinking about me...´ she thought with Naruto`s face on her mind.

Sakura and Ino were taking their lunch break at the hospital and casually talking,

"So, why do you think Tsunade-sensei summoned all of us to her office for a meeting in the afternoon?" asked Sakura, knowing that if there is anyone who knows it must be Ino.

"I have no idea, I havent even heard any rumors about it, probably something about The Red Fox." said Ino starting to worry that she may be losing her touch on maintaining her "gossip-network"".

"It must be really important if it`s kept a secret like this..." said Sakura getting a far-away look in her eyes.

"We˙ll find out soon enough, the meeting will start in about 2 hours anyway." and they left it at that.

The meeting Tsunade called was about the preparations for the Chunin exams in Suna and Sasuke˙s reinstatement in the shinobi ranks. when Sasuke entered the room, he was covered by enough killer intent to kill a man, The Konoha 10, Shizune, team sensei˙s, and in a small part Tsunade and Kakashi were doing teir best to make Sasuke drop dead just from the use of their willpower. Sasuke didn`t even blink, he bowed politely to Tsunade and silently sat on a chair in the corner. When Tsunade noticed this she thought,

`He didn˙t even move under such a massive ammount of killer intent, that can mean only one thing, he is at peace with death...´ all of the people in the room soon came to the same conclusion.

The meeting went like all of the meetings about The Red Fox, lot of leaked killer intent, cursing, and similar. In the end it was decided that all of the shinobi will be recalled to Konoha to only participate in nearby missions, while Tsunade, Kakashi, Gai, Kurenai, Asuma, several jounin and chunin along with The Konoha 11 (despite all the resistance in placing Sasuke as the new member).

Tsunade also mentioned that Danzo, Koharu and Homura might come too, if only to give The Red Fox a piece of their mind.

After a few hours the meeting was over and they all left the room, Shikamaru right after Hinata,

"Is there any chance that you˙ll tell me more?" Shikamaru asked, carefull not to reveal what he was talking about,

"No." Hinata said right away,

"Troublesome..." Shikamaru said and went home, but on the inside, he was analyzing Hinata˙s behaviour,

`Two of them are definitley planning something that will affect all of us, maybe even Konoha as a whole...troublesome...´ he thought as he was walking home.

`I˙ll have to be carefull that she doesn˙t notice my suspicions, she might even...˙ He shuddered at the thought of Hinata making her threats against him a reality.

December 1st

The Konoha shinobi were walking towards Sunagakure no Sato, they have decided that they would walk since a third of the way to Suna is through the desert. They were still in Hi no Kuni, walking down a road through the forest. Tsunade was in the middle with Jiraiya on her right and Shikamaru to her left. Hinata was about 15 meters at the front of the entire formation while Neji was at the back the same distance from the Hokage. Their formation was with trackers on the edges and all the fighters in between. Kiba was on the right side of the formation when he smelled two scents coming from the right side of the forest in front of them. Since the scents were coming quickly he alarmed the others,

"Hey! I smell two people, they˙ll soon come out of the woods, there" he said while pointing to a point about 50 meters in front of them.

The formation tightened and everyone dropped to their stances ready to protect the Hokage.

"It looks like some sort of a chase, the first person is clearly running from the second one" Kiba said after noticing the distance between the scents.

They didn˙t have to wait much longer, a man wearing somewhat standard shinobi outfit and a slashed Kiri forehead protector jumped out of the forest heavily panting. When he noticed the Konoha shinobi his mood changed from frightened to somewhat happy,

"Help! She˙s crazy, I˙ll join Konoha, you can put me in jail, just don`t let her get to te me! She˙s cra..." he didn˙t have the chance to say anything more while he was running towards the Konoha shinobi since everyone heard the sound of something sharp flying towards the rouge Kiri shinobi. He only had enough time to turn his head to the forest he came running from and the flying object. The object came flying at great speed towards the man, since he was still some 30 meters from them, no one could help him, the object was rotating like a giant shuriken, and a glimpse of metal was seen as the blade came in contact with the man˙s head, cleanly severing it from the body it was supposed to be attached to. the weapon continued flying forwards and embeded itself in a tree on the other side of the road. The weapon was a short naginata spear, probably about 60 inches in lenght, with a wide, curved blade that somewhat looked like a blade of a scimitar.

The Konoha group tensed, whoewer did this to the man was clearly very skilled,

"Show yourself!" Tsunade yelled, and surely enough, a figure could be seen moving in the shadow of a tree from the direction the deadly weapon was thrown. The figure didn˙t stop or even look at the Konoha shinobi, it simply walked towards the dead man, or more precisely his head, and took out a scroll. Once again the figure completely dressed in black, with a large hood covering the face and another naginata across the back,made the Konoha shinobi tense opening a scroll. The figure simply sealed the head of the dead Kiri rouge inside. The figure moved towards the thrown naginata and freed it from the tree ignoring the shouts from an angry Tsunade demanding identification. The cloaked figure was clearly a female judging by the way she walked, she was average in height, showing that she was at least a few years older than anyone in the Konoha 11, anything else about her was hidden.

After retrieving the naginata and placing it across her back the figure turned towards the Konoha shinobi and bowed, after which she took back her hood a little, only enough to show the mask with the tails on the forehead. A giggle could be heard from behind the mask as the figure turned around and showed everyone the 6 tails above the fox head on the back of her cloak. After quickly throwing a tagged kunai on the body the figure started running towards Suna, laughing loudly.

Several things happened during the retreat of the figure.

The kunai activated and a fire started enveloping the body, after a few seconds, the fire intensified and all that remained from the body was ashes.

Everyone was surprised by the fact that the woman was a member of The Elite Red Foxes, and they didn˙t know what to do. After being calmed by Jiraiya, Tsunade decided that they would continue forward at normal speed instead of chasing the "troublesome woman" as Shikamaru put it.

They were all impressed by the skill the woman has shown with a naginata, it requires great precision and skill to be able to throw a polearm and sever someone˙s head. And some of the Konoha 11 were nervous that the woman had only 6 tails. Of course Hinata knew that the number of tails is unimportant, she already met all of them and Naruto explained it all to her.

Number of tails is completely random, they are just a sign of Naruto˙s trust in them.

The rest of their trip was uneventfull, mostly because everyone was on edge from the performance put by the Elite Red Fox.

When the group arrived to Suna they were formally welcomed by the Kazekage and his family, a small ammount of hatred towards Konoha could be seen from Gaara and his siblings, but Jiraiya realised something was wrong. The villagers in Suna were all giving them hatefull looks but that wasn˙t unexpected, something was going on, it just didn˙t feel right and Jiraiya knew that it was something important.

While they were being escorted to the hotel in which they will be staying, they came across The Red Fox with two of his bodyguards. The two groups were standing opposing each other on the street for a few seconds. The smaller group slowly went forward towards the Konoha group. The elders wanted to yell at the man for ruining Konoha but they held it in, after all they have seen what one of his followers can do, and the fact that the 6-tailed elite they saw on their way was with The Red Fox didn˙t help their resolve

When they came close enough, they bowed and The Red Fox said:

"It is a pleasure to finally meet all of you, I hope you are all ready for the friendly "spar" that has been organized."

Tsunade was confused, she was the Hokage, her job was to protect the people and this was the man that brought a lot of suffering to Konoha. Somehow she just coudn˙t find hatred in her heart for this man.

"How? How do you..." Tsunade didn˙t finish her sentence since she was interrupted by The Red Fox.

"I knew you would ask How instead of Why, I suppose you want to know how I know so much about Naruto. Let˙s just say that he made a good impression on me when we briefly met."

This got everyone thinking,

`When did he meet Naruto´

"I have three things to discuss with your group at this time, you will find out more about my story during our fight after the chuunin exams.

I should first tell you about the opponents your jounin will be facing." said The Red Fox

"All of the opponents are members of my elite forces, I will be facing you Senju-hime..." Tsunade was now finding hatred towards The Red Fox, "my genjutsu specialist has requested Kurenai-san as her opponent, my 8-tailed and 6-tailed followers here have not requested any specific opponent, and my 4-tailed friend has requested Asuma-san as his opponent."

"I am sure that you have some information about them already, if you feel that your shinobi should know more about their opponents, you are free to ask for additional information."

`So far, so good. Time to put up another act, i just hope i can fool Jiraiya.´

"Second. I would like to ask for your permission to meet with the lovely lady you are reffering to as "Kitsune ANBU" on the 27th of December."

The Red Fox requesting a date with Hinata snapped everyone from their thoughts about the possible information they could uncover about his elite shinobi.

`What? Why? But... This may be a chance to find out more about him...´ Thought Tsunade after her "Hokage mode" activated.

Most of the other shinobi present were surprised beyond words. Hinata was of course faking her surprise, but turned towards the Hokage anyway and gave a questioning look.

"You have my permission." Tsunade said before anyone could protest, and when they were about to say something, they were silenced by Tsunade˙s menacing gaze.

`Not good, that council is affecting her faster than i thought.´ thought Naruto in disguise

"The third thing i wish to discuss would be with Uchiha Sasuke." said The Red Fox.

The Konoha shinoby felt stupid for a few seconds, most of their journey through Suna the didn˙t even know that Sasuke was with them. mostly due to Sasuke hiding his presence and trying to be forgotten. But, they couldn˙t allow Sasuke to be killed, at least not like this, while he was a Konoha shinobi. Sasuke, however, was hoping for this,

`Now is my chance, this person want˙s justice for Naruto, he will kill me, and then I will finally be free...´ Sasuke thought stepping forward and standing in front of The Red Fox, readying himself for the lethal blow.

"Tell me, Sasuke-san, are you alive?"

"Huh? What does that have to do with anything?"

"Please answer my question." The Red Fox said calmly.

"...no." Sasuke said after a few seconds of silence.

"If I am not mistaken, a certain blonde left through the gates of your village, with the sole purpose of bringing you back alive. So I ask you now, why are you not alive? Were his actions that day for nothing? Is this how you will go down in history? As one of the last in the clan, that died of sorrow? I hold no grudge against you. You will not find death by my hands." with all that said The Red Fox turned and left before he could be stopped, leaving his former comrades in mass confusion, and Sasuke with a small piece of hope and a will to live that he lost so long ago...


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 5

December 27th

Two days have passed since the "date" between The Red Fox and Hinata. Tsunade and Jiraiya were in their hotel room discussing the recent events.

"She say˙s she doesn˙t know anything, but i can˙t help but be suspicious about her." Tsunade stated, relieving her weary mind.

"I know, and I˙ve seen a lot of suspicious stuff around here. My conclusion is: Something big is going on, and we have no idea what it is!" Jiraiya said, annoyed because even his spy network

has proven useless.

"And she might be a part of it..." Tsunade absent-mindedly started.

"But that˙s what doesn˙t make sense, she changed three years ago so that would be the time she started working for... whoever she is working for. But everything else is just... impossible to

figure out, we are missing a lot of things here."

"We have no choice, we just can˙t deal with this kind of problem. We need Shikamaru, we˙ll tell him all we have and hope he has a conclusion." Tsunade said, effectively finishing their

conversation.

Various places in Sunagakure no Sato

Suna was prepairing for the upcoming chuunin exams. The village was filled with people, most of them from other nations coming to see the famous Red Fox in action. Among the more famous

visitors were the Fire Daimyo and the Wind Daimyo with their royal families. Needless to say, security was extremely tight in Sunagakure no Sato.

The few Konoha genin were training on the provided training grounds, fininshing the tehniques they have all been working on for the last month. They knew that if they are to be remembered

they needed something powerful to show the audience their skill, and divert some attention from the seasoned warriors towards themselves. They were training on separate, but neighbouring,

training grounds; there was a chance that they would face one of their own in the matches and they didn˙t want to reveal their tehniques to them.

Hinata was doing her routine training and for the hundreth time that day went over the things that happened on her "date".

She remembered how romantic it was, the candlelight dinner, the walk through the moonlit desert and his birthday gifts to her. first was the specially crafted mask of the fox, it resembeled

the masks which The Red Fox Elite was wearing all the time but it had more gracious curves which showed it was a mask of a female fox. The second gift he gave her are his plans for the two of

them, both of them living in a decent sized house in a decent sized village wit a decent sized family, it would seem a bit standard for most people, but neither of them needed to live in the

big city, and they were both happy as long as they were together. He did say that it was the most likely scenario, but that there are many other possible conclusions to their story. She

didn˙t care, she would fight with all her power just to be with him, it did not matter to her if he would become the Daimyo, or if they would live in a small cottage in a forest somewhere,

they would be together despite everyone else. With that last thought she swiped at the tree which was her target, and without her hands even touching it, it was cut clean through in four

diagonal lines, falling to the ground.

She turned around and walked away in deep thought,

`Tsunade was pretty suspicious of me, she is probably going to have me watched, Naruto-kun did say that she would be no problem, but what about Jiraiya?´

She continued contemplating his plans while walking to her hotel.

The Konoha hotel

"So this is it?" Tsunade asked.

"Yes Hokage-sama, the Red Fox told me to give you the information on our competitors and it is all here." an unnamed messenger said.

"Very well, you may leave."Tsunade dismissed the messenger and called for her jonin.

Few minutes later

The jonin were all in the room with Jiraiya and Tsunade considering the data they were given.

"It says here that my enemy is a genjutsu specialist but he or she also wields a... Gunbai-Dansen? That˙s strange, genjutsu and a war fan." Kurenai read from the scroll and gave it to Asuma

after finishing.

"Heh, all I˙ve found out about my enemy is that he uses brute strenght and no weapons."Asuma handed the scroll to Gai after reading about his opponent."

"My enemy is said to be versatile in most skills but prefers weapons and ninjutsu, it also says that he uses three short weapons and throwing weapons." Gai said, for once in his life without

yelling or using the word "youth".

Kakashi scanned the scroll with his boring look and gulped,

"My opponent seems to be the woman we encountered on our way here..."Kakashi said slightly disturbed, he definitely didn`t need this.

"I think you should all know about something..." Tsunade said and started explaining what she and Jiraiya found, along with Shikamaru˙s conclusion.

After several minutes of explanation everyone gave their own oppinion about Hinata.

"I have been wondering about her strenght, she˙s only sixteen and already an ANBU captain, this could not have been caused simply by..." Kakashi stopped when he remembered something very

important, That topic was forbidden, Tsunade would either go into a rage or a depression whenever she would remember Naruto.

Tsunade managed to snap out of her oncoming sadness with Jiraiya˙s help,

"I just wanted you to be prepared for anything." she said dismissing them.

`I find it hard to believe that Shikamaru has no idea what is happening, I should go talk to him, it˙s not every day he says he can˙t solve a mystery.´ thought Asuma as he walked out of the

office.

Several days later.

The day of the final stage for the chuunin exams was here. A lot of people could be seen walking out of the city with anticipation clear on their faces. Since Suna˙s exam stadium was pretty

large but it was not enough for this many people, Gaara had to build another one. It was only temporary, but he made sure it would hold long enough. The only problem was that there wasn˙t

enough space inside the walls to build something this big. So a lot of people could be seen walking through the desert, looking in awe at the magnificent building in the distance.

When all the people were finally inside and comfortable the proctor came to the middle of the arena.

"Welcome, to the Sunagakure no Sato Chuunin exams!" the crowd cheered in anticipation of the fights.

"I˙ll keep this short, so we can get to the fights sooner. First we will hold the standard chuunin exams among the current genin, after wich we will see the professional fighters battle it to

the limit." The crowd cheered again as the genin entered and stood in the middle of the arena.

The first match was between a Suna genin and the only Iwa genin that made it to the final stage. The battle was quite impressive for a battle of two genin, and after several minutes and some

blood on both sides, the Iwa genin managed to trap the Suna genin with a Doton: Shinju Zanshu no jutsu. When Sasuke saw the jutsu he almost showed a smile, he remembered the jutsu as it

brought back memories, it was quite uncomfortable being stuck in the ground like that. He dismissed the thoughts and returned his attention to the battle.

The second match started shortly, it was between Suna genin and a Konoha genin. The Suna genin was an excellent weapons specialist, but he was no match to the young branch house Hyuuga. even

though not considered the most powerful of the genin in Konoha, the Hyuuga was skilled enough to close in and finish the fight with a few quick hits to the shoulders, disabling the Suna

genin.

The third match was once again between Suna and Konoha. This time Suna genin won, using a high level Fuuton jutsu to destroy the Kikaichu swarms sent by the young Aburame genin. Shino, who

was in the stands watching the fight, observed his apprentice and formed plans on how to improve the training.

The next match was fought by a Konoha genin and a Taki genin, who strangely, had lighning affinity, which helped him win the fight against the water affinity of the Konoha genin. The judges

were thinking of passing the Taki genin, since he had shown a good ability to think ahead and keep his abilities a secret.

With three fights left, the crowd was getting restless, the genin fights were above their expectacions but still seeing the real shinobi fight was once in a lifetime opportunity for a

civilian. The Kage˙s with The Red Fox were in the kage booth following the matches carefully, all the while being silent. Tsunade made a habit of glancing towards the young man she was going

to fight, so far she concluded that he was strong, but was also balanced in other arts, she also noticed that he probably had a weapon on his lower back. She returned to watching the fights

and calculating the best approach in the fight to come.

Fight between the Iwa genin and the Konoha genin was finished in 5 minutes mainly because the Iwa genin lost his compolsure and started shooting any jutsu he knew at the young Hyuuga which

dodged expertly and delivered a few kicks to the ribs, which effectively sent his opponent into unconciusness. Next match was won by the wind specialist, the Taki genin relied too much on his

lighning affinity which was weak against the hot desert wind. The Taki genin was literally blown out of the stadium.

The final genin fight was the most interesting of all of them. A Suna shinobi which uses the wind to damage the skin and flesh of his opponent, against the Konoha shinobi who uses pure chakra

to damage everything except the skin and flesh. The fight lasted for over ten minutes, but it was far from boring. Both of them were fast and powerful, but the wind user was specialised in

medium range fighting and he was proved that running from a Hyuuga is a really hard thing to do. The Hyuuga won, if only barely since he had to go to the hospital because of the blood loss

from the various cuts on his body.

The time for the fights everyone was waiting for came and the crowd was silent in anticipation.

Asuma stepped into the arena and stood in the center close to the proctor. His opponent entered and stood on the opposite side, and said,

"I am the four-tailed follower of The Red Fox, He rescued me from a terrible future of being controlled. He has helped me in taming my inner demon..." at the last few words Asuma visibly

tensed,

`No way! If this guy is one of the lost demon containers I have a hard battle ahead of me...´

Asuma˙s opponent removed his hood to reveal a four-tailed mask and spiky orange hair. At the sight of the hair most of the rookies remembered Naruto who had the same style of hair, only

difference was, this hair was longer and different color.

He took off the cloak to reveal somewhat standard shinobi equipment in darker colors, with standard kunai holsters and equipment pouches. He finally took off his mask and revealed a face of a

young man in his twenties,

"My name is...Juugo"

A/N:

First: I am aware of the shortness of this chapter, however this felt like the perfect place to end it since the next one will be mostly about the fights.

Second: I thank you all for your support, for all the rewievs, favs, alerts and everything else...

Third: If you have any ideas or suggestions, please send them in.

Fourth: There will be two important OC˙s they have both been drawn and I will be posting links to them in the next chapter since they will also be fighting...


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 6

Juugo dropped into a standard taijutsu stance and waited for his opponent to attack. Asuma brandished his trench knives ang got into his stance. The proctor looked towards both of them and lifted his hand, after a second he gave the signal for the fight to begin and jumped away.

Asuma was the one to attack first, he charged forward and channeled wind chakra to his knives to make them deadlier. Juugo prepared himself and barely dodged Asuma˙s attack by stepping to the side. Asuma continued swinging in wide arcs towards Juugo˙s head and limbs, he knew that he stood little chance against a demon container so he had to finish this fast. Unfortunately for him Juugo was specialised in close combat and managed to mostly dodge all the attacks earning only a few scrapes and shallow cuts.

So far Juugo was testing Asuma trying to see how fast and strong he was,

`It looks like I˙ll have to use it...´ he thought as he released a chakra burst from his body to confuse Asuma and kicked him in the stomach making him fly back good 30 feet (10 meters).

The crowd was cheering, they haven˙t seen such physical strenght in their lives, and even shinobi were surpried when they noticed that Juugo only needed some breathing space, his attack was only a distraction.

Juugo placed his hands in the boar seal and channeled his chakra to the large seal array on his back. His cursed seal spred across his entire body and over the black marks spread a set of white marks similar to the spider-web.

At the sight of the cursed seal Asuma tensed, sure, he wasn˙t fighting against a demon, but he saw what can a cursed seal do, he saw Sasuke˙s memories.

Sasuke was shocked, down in the arena was a man with a cursed seal much more powerful than his ever was, he could sense that much.

Juugo was the one to charge forward this time, and Asuma was having trouble keeping up with the attacks, Juugo would miss him and punch the ground wich created huge craters equal to Tsunade˙s. That alone made the crowd stare in awe, and the shinobi were watching Asuma getting beaten up mercilessly.

`Damn! I˙ll have to attack him with everything I have...´ Asuma thought before jumping as far away as he could and using all his power to make the blades in his hands sharper, he also channeled some chakra to his leg muscles to increase his speed.

Juugo saw what the man was trying to do and pointed his right hand towards the sky and released the white seals from his entire right arm. The arm transformed into a disfigured, muscled, dark-skinned... thing that just reeked of evil. He brought his arm down and returned to his stance, waiting for Asuma to strike.

Asuma saw what Juugo has done to his arm and for a brief moment he thought about changing his plan, but in the end he decided that it was now or never. He charged with the speed witch rivaled Guy˙s.

When he was a few meters away from Juugo he increased his speed even more and went under Juugo˙s punch. He managed to make a few deep slashes across Juugo˙s chest, making him bleed heavily.

When juugo tried to grab the smaller man in front of him, Asuma ducked low, and when Juugo˙s hands were above him he made his move, he almostcut of Juugo˙s arm when he used all his force to cut through most of Juugo˙s shoulder, making the larger man cry out in pain with blood spraying the dirt and sand under them.

Juugo glanced at his leader high in the kage booth and recieved a short nod, that was all he needed. He channeled a small ammount of chakra to a special seal on his stomach and fell on his knees feeling no more pain, his wounds closing, his conciousness leaving him.

"He won˙t be getting up for at least another half hour" said The Red Fox to noone in particular, loud enough to only be heard by the few people in the kage booth.

The proctor checked Juugo and called the match,

"Winner, Sarutobi Asuma!" the crowd cheered after seeing such an interesting fight and the shinobi had mixed thoughts about the match,

`He went a little too far for a "friendly match"...´ were the thoughts of those who havent seen what can a cursed seal do. The rest were glad that Juugo didn˙t go on a killing spree, while some of the more observant shinobi were wondering how he managed to stay so calm under the influence of the seal.

After the arena was cleaned up by a few Suna Doton users next two competitors came in the arena.

Kurenai stood on one side of the arena and her mysteryous opponent stood on the other side.

"I am the three-tailed follower of The Red Fox, He rescued me from a terrible future of being controlled. He has helped me in taming my inner demon..." said the mysterious woman.

`What? No way, she can˙t be a container, the last guy wasn˙t... but he wasn˙t that far either...´ Kurenai thought, already thinking about her arsenal of genjutsu and which one would be most effective in the bright sun.

The cloak flew to the wall of the stadium revealing a woman shorter and a bit younger than Kurenai, with long brown hair loosely tied. She wore standard shinobi outfit in light blue, and held her Gunbai-Dansen in her left arm. She lifted her right hand and removed her mask, throwing it on the cloak next to the wall. Her face was something which made most of the senior Konoha jounin and the council gasp. Kurenai was the firs to collect herself,

"Y-Yakumo...?" she asked the question which was on everyone˙s mind.

"Yes Kurenai-sensei, it˙s me. It˙s been a long time since we have seen each other." Yakumo answered in a sweet tone holding no evil or hidden intentions wich almost made Kurenai cry.

"I hope you did not forget something important, I was the one who asked for you to be my opponent." Yakumo said, her expression turning serious.

`Controlling her inner demon... this will not be easy.´ Kurenai thought and dropped to her loose taijutsu stance, drawing a kunai to defend herself from the metal fan in Yakumo˙s hands.

The proctor looked at both of them and after concluding that they are ready, started the match.

Yakumo was the one to start. Noone expected her to throw her Gunbai-Dansen high into the air and start sealing with the speed and precision of the most experienced ANBU. Kurenai started sealin as well, even though Yakumo started first, they finished their tehniques at the same time since Yakumo˙s had four times more hand seals.

"Magen: Jubaku Satsu!" Kurenai called her usuall tehnique and she was about to capture Yakumo in it when she heard her calling her own tehnique.

"Kokuangyou no jutsu!" Yakumo called out and complete darkness enveloped Kurenai making her unable to see anything but herself. She heard the Gunbai-Dansen being caught by a hand and decided that she needed to get out of the darkness. She started sealing to use her new tehnique for breaking a genjutsu and after 4 seals she succeeded.

"Koppamijin Uso no jutsu!"

What she saw next was not what she expected. The entire arena was on fire, she couln˙t see anyone, only fire was there.

She started sealing again and once again used the same tehnique for breaking a genjutsu.

"Koppamijin Uso no jutsu!"

She foundherself on her knees, her hands tied up with ninja wire behind her back. She tried standing up but pain in her legs brought her back down.

`Why do my legs hurt, I didn˙t even move from here and i don˙t remember being hit.´ she thought.

"Please don˙t try to move, you will only make it worse for yourself." Yakumo said in her neutral tone.

"What happened?" Kurenai asked the question that was on her mind.

"I placed you under 4 different genjutsu at the same time, that tehnuiqe you used was enough to break 2 of them each time you used it. You should give up, that wire is made of chakra absorbing material, it will drain you slowly until you can no longer stay councious."

Kurenai thought about her options, she would probably be able to get out of the wire˙s, but she probably had a few cracked bones and going further would be useless.

"Proctor, I give up." She said and Yakumo removed the wires and returned them to her pouch. She slowly left to the room which the non-Konoha competitors were given. Kurenai, after she was able to walk again, left after her, she needed to talk to Yakumo, she was worried for the past two years since Yakumo disappeared from her "prison". She wanted to beg for forgivness, for not taking better care of her, for not standing up for her, she didn˙t expect much, but she had to try.

She caught up with Yakumo at the entrance to the room.

"What do you want to ask Kurenai-sensei?" Yakumo asked before Kurenai could say anything.

"I want to know, if it˙s possible for you to ever forgive me, I know I could have been a much better sensei to you but..." she stopped when she felt something around her neck, when she opened her eyes she could see that Yakumo was hugging her.

"Don˙t, please, you were more than a sensei to me, I have forgiven you a long time ago once I got the monster under control." she broke the hug and looked back to see Kurenai crying.

"Yakumo-chan, is this woman bothering you?" asked a voice behind Yakumo. When Kurenai looked she saw a man slightly taller than Yakumo, with a 2-tailed mask and a cloak.

"No, these are tears of joy Menma-kun. Kurenai-sensei, you should probably head back to not make your friends worry." Yakumo said and Kurenai hugged her once again,

"I hope we can find some time to get together..." Kurenai said and left the room.

The next fight was between Guy and the 8-tailed Red Fox. They were both standing in the middle of the arena and the crowd was waiting for them to start since the last match didn˙t prove very entertaining.

"I am the eight-tailed follower of The Red Fox, He rescued me from a terrible future of being controlled. He has helped me in taming my inner demon..."

`So you too? I will show you the power of youth!" Guy said in his usuall loud manner.

Guy˙s opponent took of his cloak to reveal a completely black shinobi outfit with no skin showing. He had two wakizashi on his lower back, and a ninja Sai dagger on his left thigh. Black gloves, black closed shinobi sandals with black pants. His kunai holster was sewn into his pants and his equip Only things that weren˙t black were his slightly pale skin, his leather belts, one on his waist, holding his pants, and the second in the most peculiar place, his right shoulder. The second belt was going around his shoulder making it look like the entire sleeve could be detached. He had brown hair and dark brown eyes which fitted his stoic expression perfectly.

"My name is Keigai"

(A/N: link to the drawing of Keigai is at the end of the fic (drawing made by mattwislon83 on dA))

The proctor started the match after looking at both of the competitors and concluding that they had nothing to say.

Keigai was the first to make a move, he took out a pair of kunai with unseen speed and threw them at Guy. Guy dodged the kunai easily but he had slight problem with the bunch of shuriken that came out of nowhere. He still didn˙t have a scratch on him but he was growing a bit worried by the speed Keigai was showing.

Keigai still hasn˙t moved from his spot, it gave him great view of most of the arena so he just stood there. Now he knew how fast Guy can get with his weights on, he had to get him to take the weights off.

While he was thinking Guy charged forward in his standard move,

"Konoha Senpuu!"

Keigai ducked under the whirlwind kick and continued dodging and blocking the furious attacks occasionally giving his own punches and kicks.

Guy was obviously leading in the taijutsu, even though it was by just a little, he still hadn˙t landed a good hit, but neither has Keigai.

Guy jumped back and while in the air, undid his leg weights which fell to the ground with a large explosion.

Keigai gripped his Sai dagger defensively, so that the blade was goin along his forearm and dropped into a low stance, prepared to defend himself.

Guy charged again, only this time with more speed and power. Keigai would have lost his head if he hadn˙t ducked, he noticed the reason for that,

`He must have noticed that I was calculating his power... but to open two gates just to gain an advantage... he is a strong and cunning opponent.´

Keigai kept dodging and blocking as best as he could, with an occasionall slash with the blade in his hand, he manged to keep Guy at a distance.

He switched his Sai with a pair of wakizashi as soon as he had the chance to,

`I can˙t place him in a genjutsu with so much chakra flying around, taijutsu is a definite no, he˙s too fast for ninjutsu, I guess I˙ll have to use fuuinjutsu...´

He started jumping around Guy, making slashes at the ground. This lasted for another couple of minutes, when he suddenly jumped outside of the circle of cracks and slashes he made. Guy was in the middle of the circle at the time and he had only enough time to turn around to face his enemy.

"Fuuin: Juushin Gekizou!" at the name of the tehnique most of the slashes started glowing brightly.

Guy was frozen in place, It felt like the earth wanted to swallow him, he had already formed a small crater under him by simply standing still and it was expanding!

"You can still give up." Keigai said in a calm tone.

Guy was being silent, he was in fact trying to think of a way to break this seal, but there was only one way to do that, and he was reluctant to carry through with it.

Keigai, seeing that his opponent is keeping silent, took out a handfull of shuriken and amied one at Guy˙s head.

Guy didn˙t see this as he was in his own world, and the crowd was cheering at the intensive battle.

With a flick of a wrist, shuriken flew towards Guy˙s head and once it entered the area above the seal it fell almost straight down.

Second shuriken was thrown, this one had more strenght behind it and it was aimed higher. But still, it hit only dirt under Guy˙s feet.

Guy made his decision, he closed his eyes and concentrated. Third gate was open, this made Keigai stop with the next shuriken and start thinking.

`He˙ll try to brak from the seal and smash me into that wall behind me, probably at the seventh gate, I˙ll need a stronger defence. I guess it can˙t be helped, I˙ll probably lose this one...´

Keigai took his Sai and slammed it through his left palm making the blood spray across the sand.

He made several seals and named his tehnique just as Guy broke free and litterally flew towards Keigai,

"Kuchiyose: Rashomon!" Keigai named his tehnique and a giant demonic gate came from the earth in front of him making a lot of dust rise. Next sound that was heard was a great explosion which meant that Guy hit the gate the dust settled a giant crater could be seen with Keigai in the center lying barely conciouss and Guy in front of him on his knees with both wakizashi deeply embeded in his body. One was in his right shoulder and the other was through his left leg. Despite the bad wounds he got up to his feet and signaled to the proctor to call the match.

After Keigai said that he can˙t fight anymore, Guy was the winner. After a few steps Guy crashed to the ground and the medic˙s rushed in.

It took a while for the crowd to calm down from seeing such an exciting fight while the doton users had more work to do with repairs.

Kakashi walked out to the middle arena lazily and stood close to the proctor. His opponent jumped to the other side and stood there.

"Let me guess, you also had help with controlling the "inner demon", am I right?" Kakashi started frist.

"How did you know?" the woman said in fake dissapointment.

"Well anyway..." she said and stuck her two naginata˙s in the ground aas sheremoved her cloak to reveal a young woman with a beautiful figure and the most peculiar choice of clothing.

She was wearing red shinobi sandals with a shin guard on her left leg, white fingerless gloves with forearm guard on her right arm. She had a sleeveless top and a short skirt, both were in two colors, left was completely black with small white star-like pieces of glitter, while the right side was golden, also with a lot of glitter. The black side of her skirt was torn into neat ribbons. She had a big obi belt which was colored in all possible colors and tied in a big bow behind her back.

Her blond hair was truly a sight to behold, she clearly took good care of it since it was almost as shiny as her clothes, and the fact that her hair was in a long ponytail which almost touched the ground showed that she liked her hair too much to cut it. Her eyes were also alluring, you don˙t see dark purple eyes every day.

She also had paper seals all over her hair. That alone took Kakashi˙s attention,

`She˙s hiding something in her hair, maybe some kind of a chakra reserves...´

She took off her mask to show a beautiful face with a matching smile,

"My name is Niji, nice to meet you." she said in a sweet tone, acting like she was a young girl.

"What are you hiding in your hair, those seals are quite powerful." Kakashi asked before the fight began.

"Well..." she turned a little to give him a better view of her behind and a huge bow on her lower back, "I wouldn˙t mind if someone as cute as you would `unwrap´ my secrets..." she let the sentence hang and gave Kakashi a hungry look, biting her lip.

(A/N: There is a drawing of this character on dA by MichellexNaruto4eva, link is at the end of the text.)

"That poor man..." Naruto commented to himself, just loud enough to be heard by the Kage˙s close to him.

Kakashi actually blushed, at the woman˙s forwardness and unfortunately for him she noticed it.

"Oh, did I just make you blush? How naughty of me, `someone´ will have to punish me later..." she said in a seductive tone, biting her finger and making Kakashi blush even more.

He got himself together and dropped into his stance, drawing the Hatake family tanto from it˙s sheath on his back.

Niji sighed, disappointedfor not being able to play more, and grabbed her naginata from the ground,

"Shikai!" she called, but nothing happened, she simply dropped to her stance, pointing both polearms at her opponent, one from above her head, and the other from her side.

(A/N: Some of you may connect this to Bleach, but there will NOT be any sort of zanpakutoh in this story, Shikai means "first release" or "primary release" so I just used it in here.)

The proctor started the match an jumped away from the competitors leaving a staring contest behind him.

Kakashi already had his sharingan revealed and couldn˙t lose precious chakra so he charged forward.

He started attacking with short kicks and fast slashes, however, all of his attacks were deflected or dodged, but what irritated him most was the constant smile Niji had on her face.

After a few minutes of fighting it was visible that the older shinobi is more experienced since Niji already had a few scrapes and cuts, but nothing serious.

She jumped away from him and spread her hands from her body. Kakashi was prepared to analyze any jutsu she would throw at him and counter it, however she slammed the bare ends of her naginata into each other making them connect into one long two-sided naginata

"Nikai!" she charged forward twirling her long spear above her head menacingly. Kakashi was surprised to say the least, mostly because Niji was laughing. It wasn˙t a laugh of someone crazy, she was really having fun fighting him.

He had more trouble fighting her now since he couldn˙t get in close enough for a hit. She was spinning her spear so fast that he was forced to jump back all the time, despite that, he was still uninjured.

After analyzing the lenght of the spear he concluded that it was too long to act as a shield if he were to attack from more angles at the same time.

He jumped back and made a single hand seal which reminded him greatly of Naruto.

After the smoke cleared two Kakashi˙s could be seen, both making the same hand seals.

"Ooooh! Is the other one anatomicaly correct?" Niji asked not even trying to supress her happines. Kakashi didn˙t hear her, he concentrated on those three simple seals.

"Chidori!" the shadow clone and the original Kakashi yelled together and charged at Niji.

Halfway there, the clone jumped high up and aimed for Niji. Kakashi didn˙t use a lot of chakra in his attack and that was visible, he only wanted to knock her out.

Niji decide that the airborne Kakashi was the first to go,

`He is so convinced that this plan of his will work, well I can`t really blame him since he doesn˙t know about my abilities...´

Niji grabbed her long spear by one end right above the blade and swung. The clone was dispatched in a horizontal slash but the real Kakashi was still on the ground and coming closer. To use her momentum, Niji continued to move along her entire body with the swing and lowered the swing to hit the second Kakashi even though he was already too close to her to get slashed.

Kakashi was getting closer, only a little bit further and he would make contact. He saw the spear coming from the side and calculated that he was definitely going to get hit by the wooden part of the spear, but he could duck under that once it got closer. What he didn˙t expect was to hear cracking noises coming from the spear itself.

The spear broke into three equal pices connected with a few inches of chain, Niji was holding the first part of the spear while the other two somehow sped up. Before he knew it, Kakashi was in danger of losing his head to the blade which flew from befind him to his right shoulder. He swung his arm and deflected the blade with his chidori, but he now had no weapon to attack Niji with so he had to retreat.

"Sankai." Niji calmly said while grabbing the middle part of the spear and spining the other two parts around her in a graceful manner.

Kakashi was growing annoyed, he should have been able to finish this match already, he was low on chakra for having to calculate so many possible counter-moves. He decided that he needed to finish this soon and thought of a simple plan.

He threw a simple smoke bomb st his feet to hide his actions from Niji.

Niji smiled even wider after she saw through his plan, he would attack her from behind after flying out of the earth. She was ready to turn around and block his attack which would bring him close to her.

Kakashi was relieved when he jumped out of the ground, she already changed her stance to meet him on the other side while he planned all along to come from the front.

She wasn˙t expecting him to jump out directly in front of her, so she couldn˙t do much except try to dodge the best she could. Only thing that she lost in that attack was a few strands of her hair.

"Baka, he˙s lucky if he survives this fight..." Naruto once again commented to himself.

She jumped away from him and looked in horror at the few golden hairs on the ground.

Kakashi was watching carefully since this was the first time he saw her face showing anything but happiness.

"M-My hair...my beautiful hair..." Niji silently said almost with tears in her eyes.

"This will not end well, you should probably take cover." Naruto said to everyone in the kage booth.

Niji˙s expression turned from extremely sad to extremely angry. In a fraction of a second all of the protective seals on her hair were burned to ashes and her ponytail undid itself making her hair fly around as it had a mind of it˙s own. Her chakra went wild, one moment it was calm like her, the next moment it began spiking and jumping all over the place.

Few civilians in the crowd passed out from the killing intent and chakra pressure, the rest were stuck to their seats being unable to move, and a few of them even had trouble breathing normally.

Niji grabbed her spear with both hands and unlocked it˙s next form,

"Yonkai!" as she yelled all the wood on the spear cracked and fell to the ground, she was now left with two blades connected by a long chain.

Kakashi was now getting really worried, she obviously had a lot more chakra and that new weapon looked really dangerous.

She charged withouth thinking, Kakashi could only try to dodge the dangerous blades as the swung around Niji. In the first few seconds he earned several cuts, none of them dangerous but still they hurt. He tried jumping away from her to hit her with a ninjutsu, but she was slightly faster than him and he could see that she wasn˙t giving it her all. Another few cuts later Niji was getting annoyed by not being able to chop up the man who harmed her hair.

"Gokai!" that was definitely the last thing Kakashi wanted to hear, the blades suddenly caught on fire leaving flaming trails behind them.

Kakashi was now getting cut up and burned heavily without even trying to hit his opponent, she was just too strong and too fast for him.

Niji got her chance and kicked him in the stomach so hard he was lifted into air, she then swung her weapon at him wrapping the chain around his neck burning his clothes and mask. She pulled him towards herself and when he was close enough kicked him again so hard he flew into the arena wall.

Her weapon was already by her side and she took out a few seals prom her pouch and placed them over her hair which made the chakra and killing intent recede.

The medics came in and carried Kakashi out, proctor called the match, and Niji blew a kiss towards The Red Fox like nothing happened. Hinata contained her killing intent since she was watching the fight with other members of Konoha 11.

"Well it would seem that we have a deciding fight ahead of us Senju-hime" said The Red Fox.

"It would seem so." Tsunad finished, and went to get ready for the fight which will decide who"won" since both sides had two victory˙s and two defeats.

It took half an hour to prepare the Arena for the last fight, and to say that the crowd was excited would be a big understatement. Everyone was on edge from the last fight and the chakra bursts from Niji.

The competitors stepped into the arena and stood opposing each other,

"Once I win I will leave Konoha alone for good, it will be just another village to me and I will have no ties to it and I will move on, I want everyone her to be the witness of that!" The Red Fox yelled. "Konoha has seen that they have wronged Naruto and the regret it, they have suffered enough." he continued looking at the confirming reactions of the people.

"How do you know so much about him?" Tsunade voiced the question which was on the mind of everyone from Konoha.

"I know this much about him because, he spent his dying moments in my arms, telling me of his life." The Red Fox lied, making sure that he was heard in the entire arena.

His lie caused various reactions, a few people commended him for his quest to bring Naruto honor in death, Sasuke started falling into a depression knowing that he made Naruto suffer more than he thought, Kakashi was devastated when he heard that Naruto may have been alive today if he hadn˙t left him. Gaara and his siblings were impressed by the acting Naruto can do, and Shikamaru was still thinking about Naruto leaving Konoha alone.

Tsunade was shocked, this man was with Naruto in his last moments, after the initial shock she asked, with tears in her eyes,

"Did he suffer?"

"No, my medical jutsu was weak at that time so I could only remove the pain and delay death for a few hours, but the Shinigami claimed his seal back." he answered sadly, his tone almost making Shikamaru question if this man was really Naruto since he was such a good actor.

"What if you lose?" Tsunade asked, happy that atleast Naruto didn˙t suffer in his last moments.

"I will then show you where he is buried." He answered silently making sure that she was the only one who heard him.

A/N: Well that˙s it, the next one should be in about a week or two, I˙ll be postin polls on about the pairings and other details, I˙m also thinking about making the chapter after the fight a flashback chapter, with more info about what happened during the timeskips.

OC˙s

Keigai (meaning of the name – mere skeleton, just a skeleton)

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Niji (meaning of the name – rainbow) on the pic, she doesn˙t have her hair in a ponytail, and her weapons aren˙t visible

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	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 7

The combatants were standing opposing each other, while the entire crowd was watching carefully.

"Are you saying that you will leave Konoha alone no matter the outcome of this match?" Tsunade carefully asked, after composing herself from thinking about visiting Naruto˙s grave.

"Yes, Konoha will be just another village to me. I still don˙t know what to do with my little group, but I doubt I will just disband them." The Red Fox said, making sure he was heard by the entire arena.

"Very well then..." Tsunade said and removed her kage robes to reveal her old battle armour polished and ready for battle.

The Red Fox removed his cloak to show everyone his own battle gear. It was made up from black pants with orange stripes at the sides, black high-collared jacket which had it˙s stomach and forearms in orange and his mask with a black bandana covering his hair. He also had a sword strapped to his lower back. The bandana was actually Naruto˙s slashed hitai-ate, and after seeing it Tsunade˙s eyes widened,

"You˙re from Konoha?" she almost yelled.

"No, this belonged to Naruto," he said pointing to the insignia, ", I slashed it after seeing the party that was held because of his death." he finished making everyone from Konoha look down in shame from the angry gazes of almost everyone in the stadium.

"I won˙t be showing you my face, at least not yet... baa-chan." he said, making Tsunade crack a small smile, remembering all those times she hit Naruto because he called her that way.

"I˙m still strong enough to kick your ass out of this arena, so don˙t you dare call me old!" She yelled, even though she wasn˙t really angry.

The proctor concluded that they were finished and started the match with his standard signal, knowing about Tsunade˙s monstrous strenght, he jumped as far as he could.

Tsunade was the first to attack, she slammed her fist down into the ground, making a giant crack spread towards The Red Fox and a few large rocks fly into the air. She used her fist as a leverage and kicked the rocks making them fly towards The Red Fox at a very high speed.

The Red Fox jumped away from the crack and used his sword to cut the rocks into two pieces, making Asuma look in wonder,

`His sword is the same material as my knives, so he has a wind affinity, and he seems to be very skilled at wind manipulation too...´

As soon as he touched the ground he made a single seal,

"Kirigakure no jutsu" he said, and a thick mist rolled in whithin a few seconds hiding the battle from the audience.

Tsunade concentrated her chakra and expelled it all in one blast, making the mist leave as fast as it came in, revealing her opponent in the middle of a jump towards her. She smirked and prepared her fist to knock him out of the arena, as she said she would...

She swung towards him, and since he had no way of escaping, he would only be able to try blocking. And she was right, he opened his fist, prepared to catch her˙s and somehow get out of the unfavorable position.

`He must be some kind of an idiot, I crushed so many arms just like this, and he still want˙s to try it... well, I˙ll just crush his arm too.´ Tsunade thought, remembering this kind of thing happening many times before.

However, when the fist and a palm made contact, no damage was dealt to either one, The Red Fox used Tsunade˙s fist which he caught in his palm and attemted a kick at her head, making her duck and jump back.

"What did you do?" She asked, still confused.

"Not much, I charged just enough chakra in my palm to counter your fist, in other words, I have superior chakra control." he said simply, not revealing any lies, not that she would be able to detect them, since he was such a master at acting.

At the stands

"Is that even possible?" Asuma asked his fellow jounin,

"If it is, then this match might end in a way we didn˙t expect." Kakashi, who was heavily bandaged and on crutches, said.

"Of course it˙s true! He wouldn˙t lie about that." a voice behind them said, making them all turn around and see a woman with a long blond hair.

Kakashi loudly gulped and started sweating, that made Niji show her sadistic smirk which would scare even Anko.

"Kakashi-kuuuun, we have some unfinished buisness together, I remember saying something about "unwrapping" and "uncovering", could you come with me and help me remember exactly what I said..." she seductively said, striking a pose which made Kakashi blush again, " ...O...ne...gai..." she asked, while making poses, this time almost making Kakashi˙s nose bleed.

"Um... I don˙t think... I should, I˙ll... just.. um... be over there..." he said and rushed away as fast as he could with half of the bones in his body broken.

"Well, I guess he wouldn˙t be much fun so broken, I˙ll just let him heal for a while..." she said to herself and walked away, making the jounin look at her with wide eyes.

"What just happened?" Asuma asked,

"I think she "wants" Kakashi..." Kurenai said, also on crutches because of the pain in her legs.

"Not even Anko-chan is like this when she want˙s to..." Guy said to himself, not noting the other two presences next to him.

`So it˙s true!´ both Asuma and Kurenai thought at the same time.

Back in the Arena

The two fighters were facing off, Tsunade thinking of possible plans, and The Red Fox waiting for her to make the first strike.

`I have to surprise him, only a few seconds is enough of an advantage, I just can't believe that I found one of the rare desert underground rivers...´

"Suiton: Suiryuudan." She yelled, making a large ammount of water fly from the cracks in the ground. The water formed a dragon and flew towards The Red Fox.

"Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu." The Red Fox said in a calm tone, making a fireball which instead of burning red, burned brightly with almost white color.

The water dragon was evaporated before even touching the fire, unfortunately for Tsunade, who was already closing the distance and preparing her finishing tehnique.

The Red Fox waited for her to come closer and simply moved his head to the side to dodge the dangerous fist. He noticed, however, that there was transparent chakra rotating around her entire fist in a spherical shape. It was too late to do anything when he noticed Tsunade's smirk.

The chakra around her fist exploded and threw him away good 15 feet (5 meters) before he stabilised himself on his feet. His mask was in a really bad shape, he covered his face with his left hand to prevent the mask from falling to the ground in pieces.

"That'll show you to underestimate me!" she shouted, getting sighs of relief from all the people from Konoha.

`I knew that she was practicing the rasengan, but to incorporate it into her attacks like this... genius´ he thought.

"I'm sorry to dissapoint you, but..." The Red Fox said and turned to water, making a small puddle on the ground.

The look on Tsunade's face was priceless, she just stood there, the thought of her opponent being a Mizu Bunshin sinking in.

`I surprised him, used my most powerful attack, hit him, and he dispelled because his mask was cracked? If he had used his full power from the beggining, he could have defeated me easily... wait, isn't a Mizu Bunshin only as strong as one tenth of the user?´

"I see you've figured it out, do you still want to go on?" He asked her, making her remember her possible reward.

She charged forward and channeled her special attack to both her fists, doing one final charge

"Rasenken!" She shouted and started swinging her fists around him with suprising grace.

He would dodge a swipe at his head and she would just try to uppercut him, to a normal shinobi her combos would seem flawless, however, The Red Fox simply weaved among her attacks, being carefull of any possible explosions, for a minute before making his move.

He came low under her swings and punched her in the stomach with an open palm, the punch was strong enough to lift her off the ground a little and make her lose concentration of her Rasenken, he followed up with a powerfull kick to her side, making her fly straight into a far wall of the arena.

After a minute, she came from the rubble, her Souzou Saisei active, her wounds closed, and her face filled with anger.

She charged at him without words, this time faster and with more precision in her punches and kicks.

It was more difficult for him to dodge, but still he was the one who had the upper hand during their exchange without even trying to hit her which only made Tsunade more furious.

He got tired of just dodging her attacks so he went in to finish the match. He crouched down and twisted on his foot, throwing out his foot straight into Tsunade's stomach, once again making her fly away from him.

This time, instead of Tsunade crashing into a wall, The Red Fox, with great speed, caught up to her and kicked in the air. He jumped and punched her again, this time making her fly down. He did this a few more times before letting her fall down, beaten but alive.

He called out to the proctor, who then after a second of hesitation, called the match. Tsunade was unable to talk, she would have been yelling already otherwise.

Sakura and Ino rushed to the medical ward wgere she was being taken by the medics.

The Red Fox walked out in silence while the crowd cheered on.

Several hours later in a hotel room.

Nine people were in the large hotel room, most of them sitting casually around the room.

"So we have an agreement then?" The Red Fox asked his elite force.

"So if this goes acoording to plan all our other plans might get easier..." Keigai said.

"That's it then, other thing I wanted to talk to you about is one interesting individual by the name of Okami Hayate. He lived in Konoha and was apparently my supporter, he helped me from the shadows and once I died he left Konoha. It looks like he was trying to find us ever since, he probably wants to join." The Red Fox said, everyone already knowing where this conversation is leading.

"So? Who's going to do it?" He asked, since everyone already knewhat had to be done.

He looked over all of them, and stopped on his seven-tailed companion,

"Would you be willing to do this? Since you know a lot about Konoha and Danzo, you would be perfect for recruiting this man... Itachi." The Red Fox said, making Itachi remove his mask and nod.

"When should I leave?" Itachi asked.

"After we leave Suna, he will probably try to follow us since he was probably watching the matches. Confront him in the desert, attack him and test his resolve, if you think that he would be useful then recruit him as a normal fox.

"Very well."

"Get some sleep, we'll leave tommorow, oh, one last thing," he said to the one-tailed Fox, "I need you to deliver two messages, tell Hatake Kakashi and Sasuke Uchiha to meet me here," he gave her a scroll with the location written down," and give this scroll to Nara Shikamaru." He gave her the scroll," and don't let them bother you, just give them the scrolls and leave, no admiring their chakra patterns Karin, understood?" he asked at which she nodded and left.

Seceral hours later in an abandoned house

"You can come in now, I'm alone." The Red Fox said to his two guests.

Kakashi and Sasuke came in and walked in front of him.

"Why did you call us out here?" Kakashi asked in his normal bored tone.

"To talk, don't worry, it's already past midnight, so I'll keep it short. First, Uchiha-san, I've heard about the letter and I can say that in his dying moments he called you his big brother, he did not blame you for anything. He gave his life so you could have yours, what use is his sacrifice if you just sit around in the dark, waiting to be forgotten?"

"Second, Hatake-san, no matter how fast you can run, you would not have been able to do anything at the time. He lost a large ammount of blood, and even the demon in his seal could do nothing to stop his death, what makes you think that you would have been able to?"

He said all this quickly, not allowing them to interrupt him, and once he was finished, they were speechless, being told what they already knew but could not accept before now.

He gave them a few minutes for everything to sink in before speaking again,

"One last thing Hatake-san, you should be carefull, I've never seen Niji this interested in a man... no, I've never seen her this interested in anything. She flirts with almost every man... and most women, but she seems to have developed an interest in you. Just wanted to tell you, in case you were thinking about "giving yourself up" to her demands... it probably won't work. Now if you'll excuse me, I have somewhere else to be tonight. At that, he left, leaving Sasuke recovering from his depression and Kakashi thinking of other things,

`I need to talk to Guy, I need advice on sadistic women.´

Half hour later, Shikamaru's hotel room

"Troublesome..." Shikamaru said to himself, lying on his bed, looking at the ceiling.

"It sure is..." The Red Fox said, making Shikamaru jump up,

"I should have expected that..."

"You should have, it's not every day you can see a Nara jumping." The Red Fox said.

"Why are you here... Naruto?" Shikamaru asked, composing himself.

"I stopped using that name a long time ago. I guess you have questions, ask away, I'll answer what I can."

"Why didn't you ever come back?" Shikamaru asked, going straight to the point.

"I did, the fireworks were wonderfull that night..." he answered.

"Wait, you came back "that" night?"

"Yes, it was touching to see you all in front of my apartment, I waited for you all to leave before writing the letter."

"What? You wrote it after... now it makes more sense."

"I'm sure it does, anything else?"

"Why did you come here tonight? I doubt it's to answer my questions." Shikamaru asked, growing a bit more nervous.

"I came to ask something, would you be willing to join us? I cannot promise you a place on the elite forces, but you are an excellent strategist and my village could use a man like you."

"What! Wait, a village? What village?" Shikamaru asked, now greatly surprised.

"I'm not asking about right now, I have plans which include allying with a village, but that won't come until a few more years. Until then, I would like you to observe the life in Konoha and other villages, once the history repeats itself, you'll need to decide. You could of course tell the Hokage about this, but that wouldn't be very good for Konoha's budget, she would try to find me and the coucil would eventually find out... I'm not threatening you, or anyone, I'm just saying that you shouldn't dismiss this..."

After a few moments of silence, he started again,

"We are leaving tommorow, I should probably get some sleep, good night." and at that, he left through the window.

`What the hell am I supposed to do now?´

"Troublesome..."

A/N: Thanks to everyone who faved the story, placed it on alert, watched the profile on dA, commented, rewieved... Thank you all for your support I'll try to write the next one as soon as possible.

The new poll is up, feel free to vote; comments and rewievs are welcome as always, criticism is welcome (as long as it's constructive...)


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 8

A/N: This entire chapter is a flashback, it's all happening between Naruto's rest in the wave country and his showing up at Sunagakure. There will probably be several chapters like this and I would prefer to have them grouped at one place, If you have any suggestions for the story, leave a review/comment/note...

Naruto was walking down the road towards The Great Naruto Bridge. It was middle of the day and many people were in the streets, watching him carefully, ready to run away at the first sing of trouble.

He had already said his goodbyes to Tazuna and his family, it made them sad that he was leaving them but he assured them that he would visit as often as he could. Remembering his mental training in his mind with the Kyuubi, he kept calm at all times, but he was not emotionless, he simply knew better than to rush into things now.

He got to the bridge and stopped, looking back at his new home and the people which would praise him if they only knew who he is... or was.

`That's right, I'm no longer Uzumaki Naruto, I'm not even completely human... I guess I'll just go by the name The Red Fox for now...´

Turning his back to the village, he started walking over the bridge, concentrating on his new goals for life.

That evening

After making camp in the forests of Hi no kuni, the tired Kyuubi finally woke up.

"Kit, I did it. I managed to restore some of my memories from the time I used to be a part of the Juubi, and it would seem that there are some people who would be glad to help you."

"Where do I go?"

"You'll need to the east, far into the ocean there should be a village on an island filled with people still worshipping the Biju. I remember them actually helping the Juubi in the battle, and all I can remember is that it's probably there. However, that was a long time ago, so don't expect much from it."

"Alright, we'll head there first thing in the morning." He said, lying down for some sleep.

Two weeks later close to the island.

The Red Fox was walking on water towards the island, being carefull since he sensed a very powerfull seal placed on the entire area in which the island itself was located.

After a few minutes he got close enough to see the village. It was in ruins.

`It's destroyed completely, can you sense the chakra signatures from here?´

`I sense two living people... and a high residue of snake chakra´ the fox talked to him mentally.

`That bastard! Let's go, we'll help with what we can. I doubt we'll get any help from them concerning our cause."

After half an hour of walking, they were closing in on the village and they sensed someone sneaking up to ambush them, it was one of the chackra signatures from the village.

The Red Fox walked forward and stopped, turning his head in the direction of his possible attacker.

"I can assure you that I mean no harm, I had buisness with the village but after seeing it destroyed I decideed to help how I can." he said, making his ambusher come out after a few seconds.

It was a woman with long blonde hair, a bit older than him; she had one naginata spear in her hands, ready to strike at the soonest hint of danger.

"Who are you and what kind of buisness? No one came here in a very long time, except those who attacked us a while ago..." She said with only a hint of sadness in her voice, though still ready to attack.

"Who am I? I'm wearing a mask so people don't know who I am, and since you seem to be a guard of sorts, take me to the other person in the village, I'll explain my buisness then." he said making her narrow her eyes.

After a few moments of thinking and analyzing, she jumped away towards the village, while he followed slowly, giving her time to tell everything to the other person in the village.

He made his way to the center of the ruined village, passing a graveyard on the way, noting that there were at least a hundred freshly buried.

He was escorted inside a small building which looked hastily repaired after the attack. Inside he saw an old man, waiting for him with tea already served.

"Welcome to our humble village, I hear you had some buisness with us? Unfortunately our trade is not in it's... best condition right now." the old man welcomed him, with a small polite smile.

"I did not come here to trade, I came to ask for help, but seeing you village, I decided that I will be the one who is helping you. Do you need anything from me?" the statement silenced the room for a few seconds, before the old man spoke again;

"I'm sorry, but we are in no need of help. Since we are the last of our blood, we have decided to live here in peace until the end of our days. Could you tell me more about that buisness you had with our family?"

"I'll be blunt, I heard that there is some history between your clan and the Juubi, I wanted to clear the name of a certain Biju and I came here hoping for help." when they heard that he knew about their history both members of the clan, grapped their naginata's, ready to strike.

"You say you have a connection to the Biju, what kind of connection would that be?"

"I used to be a jinchuuriki... and now I am a hanyou" he calmly said, making the old man drop his weapon from shock,

"No, You can't be... him! Please tell me your name!"

"I was once called Uzumaki Namikaze Naruto..." at the mention of the name they both stood there, shocked, until he removed his mask, bandana, and lifted his shirt, allowing them to see the intricate seal on his stomach.

"Y-You came back... and you look so much like your father... when I heard that you have died..." the old man said, in a silent voice, while the woman behind him started weeping.

"... I'm sorry, but I can't seem to remember either of you... I only know that you fought against the Rikudou sennin..." he said, clearly confused at their family-like behaviour.

"Yes, we are the clan that fought with the Juubi... we are the Namikaze clan." the old man said, making The Red Fox very confused, but after a few seconds he started thinking about it,

`So they are the Namikaze clan, they fought with the Juubi and were probably punished somehow with that huge seal over this this mountain. My dad was from here, and somehow he ended up in Konoha, where all the stuff with the Kyuubi happened. And apparently Orochimaru attacked them not very long ago.´

"I never even dreamed about seeing you in my life... my grandson..." the old man said with tears in his eyes, making The Red Fox once again be confused.

"We are your family, your father Minato, was my first child, and Niji here, is my last child;

Niji, why are you just standing there? Go get something to eat, you are his aunt after all." and with a smile Niji ran out of the room, leaving one very happy and one very confused man behind her.

`Kit, I had no idea about this...´ the fox talked to him in his head.

`I'm sure you... umm... didn't know... this is all a bit too much ...´

"I am sure this is a lot for you to take in since I doubt you knew about this, we have a room in which you can stay and... talk this over with your tennant." After finishing, he lead his grandson to the room, and left him to rest.

However, rest was the last thing on his mind. He sat in a meditative position, and discussed everything with the Kyuubi, making scenarios and plans, always coming to the same conclusion, he needed to know more about them.

Soon after, someone knocked on the door, making him leave his mind,

"Enter."

Niji was the one to enter, carying a tray with some tea on it.

"I'm sorry if I interrupted anything, grandfather told me to bring you the tea."

"It's alright, I was about to come out anyway."

She smiled to him and served the tea, leaving shortly after.

He left the room and went towards the two chakra signatures he detected. Luckily for him they were in the same room, he entered and greeted them formally, making them stop their discussion.

"I'm sorry for interrupting, but I have a lot of questions to ask and a little time to ask them."he began, making the older man nod in confirmation.

"I'm sure you do, and I'll tell you everything, please sit down, this sory will take a while to tell.."

A/N: Old man will act as a narrator during this flashback/story.

History is, as you probably know, written by the one who is victorious. You will need to ignore all you think is true about the Rikudou Sennin and his teachings, for he is the one who was evil in those times...

Back then, all was chaos; everyone was at war with everyone all the time. The Juubi was regarded as a deity, and as such, was respected and feared by almost everyone. There was however one man, the man who is known as the Rikudou Sennin, the first man who could control the combination of his spiritual energy and his body energy by using the hand seals.

Juubi was the only one that was able to use chakra, and that was the only thing keeping the world from destroying itself. You should know that Juubi was never in the humans, since it was immortal, it had already explored the potential of the humans, however, for some reason it could not allow the destruction of the human race.

Some say that it was ordered by Kami herself to watch over us.

The Rikudou Sennin gathered and taught many people, all in the cause of destroying the Juubi. No one knows exactly why he wanted to destroy the Juubi, some say that it was revenge for the death of his wife but nothing is certain.

The Juubi had no guards because he didn't need them, however, once the Rikudou Sennin came to the Namikaze family to ask for help against the "false god" as he called him, he was quickly refused. The head of the family decided that the Namikaze family will stand by Juubi's side for as long as they are living.

Then the great battle came, and it was great indeed. The Namikaze family had gathered some followers of their own, but it was nothing compared to the opposing forces. The Juubi was alerted about the blasphemy the Rikudou Sennin has commited; using chakra was forbidden, but no one thought much about it because everyone thought it was impossible.

The battle was said to last for days, and with Juubi on our side, the Namikaze clan destroyed much of the enemy forces. On the last days, the Juubi and the Rikudou Sennin started battling, and with much difficulty, the Rikudou Sennin managed to lure the Juubi into one of his traps. The Juubi was soon after sealed inside a mountain and lifted high into the skies.

The tears of Kami which could be seen at any time of day from any place on earth, were gathered around the mountain to be used as prison for the immortal Juubi.

Juubi's power seperated itself into nine parts, and after some time, materialised into different beasts and started wandering the world, destroying everything because none of them had any sanity left, and by the time the gained it back, they were all captured and sealed inside humans.

The rare few survivors of the Namikaze clan were sentenced to this island, you probably sensed the enormous seal across the area. That is because of your blood. The Rikudou Sennin, after capturing all of us, placed special seals on all of us and on this island, and said to us that if we ever leave the mountain, we will lose our sanity and start killing everyone, including our comrades and friends.

There were people who tried to leave, but none have succeded.

And after so many years, I was born, Rikudou Sennin also said that after we were forgiven for our crimes, the clan would give birth to a child without the seal on.

I was not the child that he spoke of, but my first child, Namikaze Minato, was.

By that time we have developed a diagnostic jutsu to determine if the baby has the seal while still inside it's mother.

After it was found that Minato would not bear the seal, I was treated as an elder of the village. Minato was going to be taken to Konohagakure no Sato, since they were the only shinobi village who still held onto their humanity for the most part at that time.

A special seal was placed on everyone who was to go to Konoha, it helped them keep their sanity, but also took away their ability to mold chakra. So they were defenseless against the rouge shinobi who attacked them on the road.

My wife was the only one to survive long enough to be saved by the Konoha shinobi, but she died shortly after, due to injuries and the difficult birth.

I had many more children, the youngest one, Niji here is the second one without the seal.

A/N: Narrator part is over

"And now it's time to tell the story of what happened to our village..." he looked sadly towards Niji.

"Somehow, Orochimaru found our village, he didn't know that we were the remnants of the Namikaze clan, or about any of our abilities. His snakes found us and he sent his ninjas to attack and try to find anything valuable. Fortunately all our secret scrolls are well hidden, so he only took some basic scrolls with nothing about our history. Since I was looked upon as an elder for the village and Niji doesn't bear a seal, she was with me in a secluded place, deep in the mountains of the island, training, for her rightful place of a leader."

"We heard the commotion but we came too late and everyone was either dead or dying, and Orochimaru's forces were long gone. Apparently he thought that we were some sort of a secret village practicing forbidden arts."

After the entire story has been told, they kept silent for a while, enjoying the tea and thinking about everything.

Finally, the silence was broken by a small fox with multiple tails,

"I think we've heard enough, and we came to a decision..."

"K-Kyuubi-sama? Is that really you?" the old man asked with a surprised face.

The Kyuubi showed a big grin,

"I like these people already, I'm all for it, how about you?" he asked looking towards The Red Fox.

"Sure, but we'll need to see what they can do."

The pair of Namikaze's watched in confusion as the Kyuubi's grin widened,

"What exactly is going on?" Niji asked, careful of her tone, knowing that she would be no match for an enraged Kyuubi.

"I'll first have to tell you about my plan. From what i know about my parents and Jiraiya-sensei, they all want a peaceull shinobi world, filled with understanding and compassion instead of constant conflicts and wars."

"To acomplish that, one would need power, and power comes in many forms. One of those forms would be the Biju and another one would be a powerfull shinobi village."

"A new world will need a military force, and a capital city. If it's okay with you, I would like to rebuild this village into the capital, over time, we will get one of the great nations to follow us, and from there, our goal will be one great nation without wars."

After he finished telling them the short version of his plan, they just stared at him with surprised expressions on their face.

"So, what is your answer?"

"...well, we would be honoured!" The old man replied with a smile and a short laugh, while Niji jumped and hugged her nephew.

"Well, right now, you two are among the few allies i have, as soon as I get more people willing to help me with this, I will send them to Nami no Kuni from where they will be sent by boat to this island. This island is pretty big, but it's also on a very good strategic position, and it's not even on any maps."

After a while, the old man spoke,

"I have only one thing to ask from you, please, take Niji with you, the only way she can grow stronger is for her to go to the outside world. "

"But, you'll be all alone here!" Niji tried to complain but her father simply raised his hand to silence her,

"Do not worry, there is much to be done here, and it won't make much difference if you stay here with me, and do not worry about me being lonely, you know how much i like meditating." he tried to reassure her with a small smile.

"Alright, " Niji turned to her nephew, "If you will have me as a companion, I will come with you."

"I don't see any problems with that, it will be good to have someone human to talk to for a change."

"It is settled then Niji go and pack up, you need to be ready when our honorable guest decides to leave." The old man said in his authoritative voice and Niji left the room.

"There is one thing you should know about Niji," The elder started, "she has never been outside of the seal, and there is something strange about her blood, you see, all of the Namikaze have at least a small ammount of the curse inside them, that is why you could sense that seal; Niji's curse however, is something I have never seen. I have been analyzing it for years now, and from what I have found out, Being outside of the seal will not make her lose her sanity, but she will act completely different, she will be more violent, her physical strenght and speed will increase, and her personality will change completely, she will still remember everything and most probably won't attack anyone friendly."

"I have already developed a fragile seal which will supress this effect, and the best thing about my seal is that it doesn't have any drawbacks, it will only keep the violent part of her sealed away"

"But you should be carefull when it comes to her hair, that is the only thing about her that always needs to be complimented, no matter the situation, she becomes violent when someone harms or insults her hair, and I'm afraid my seal might not hold if someone harms her hair."

"After some mental training, she should be able to supress it enough to place the seal on herself again if it gets broken, but that is up to you."

After he was finished talking, the man took another sip of his tea.

Some time later, after a touching goodbye, they departed and started their journey to build a better future for everyone...

A/N:

I know it's been a while since the last upload, but college has been killing me, I still have a bunch of holes in the story which I have no idea how to fill up -.-

any suggestions are welcome, if you really need to contact me, you can temporarily reach me at

.hr


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